


Dance Little Liar

by Like_a_Hurricane



Series: Tricks of the Trade [5]
Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Canon Genderbending, Creative liberties taken to bend the original mythology to my evil whims, F/F, F/M, M/M, Yes I am evil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-18
Updated: 2012-08-11
Packaged: 2017-11-08 00:34:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 86,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/437147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Like_a_Hurricane/pseuds/Like_a_Hurricane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which nothing goes quite according to anyone's plan. Also: Loki looks good in heels, Dr. Strange does not trust the god of lies as far as he can throw him, and Tony Stark is a badass.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> _“I heard the truth was built to bend_  
>  A mechanism to suspend the guilt  
> Is what you are requiring still  
> You've got to dance little liar”
> 
> \--Arctic Monkeys, "Dance Little Liar"
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> The ultra super-amazing artist [Seizure7](http://seizure7.tumblr.com/) did a [few](http://seizure7.tumblr.com/post/27952579116/drew-just-one-more-piece-of-fanart-for-tricks-of) [incredible](http://seizure7.tumblr.com/post/27944416714/a-very-quick-speed-doodle-for-the-marvelous) [pieces](http://seizure7.tumblr.com/post/27962757957/aand-another-doodle-for-tricks-of-the) of fabulous fanart for this story. Did I mention that her art is amazing? And also SHE is amazing? Seriously go check her out.
> 
>   
> 

Getting caught in a lie is rarely the problem; it’s getting caught in a lie just frequently enough that someone else’s theory about your guilt is more believable than the truth. The phenomenon was familiar enough to a certain god of lies and mischief, so by rights, he really should have seen all this coming from the start.

 

~~

 

Captain Fury was not startled to find Dr. Steven Strange in his office. In fact, Fury had all but lost the ability to be startled, especially by strange and disconcertingly powerful individuals waiting for him in places they shouldn’t really be able to access in the first place. He mused that he'd been overdue for his third one this week anyway.

“What is it?” The old soldier closed the door and locked it for good measure, walking around the magician to sit at his desk.

“The keeper of the Soul gem is lost.” Strange shot Fury a pointed look. “And the keeper of the Power gem may be missing. That one was next on Loki’s itinerary, if one judges by the sort of questions he’s been asking my contacts of recent. Admittedly, it’s the next easiest to find, though far trickier to actually collect.”

Fury leaned over his desk, resting his elbows on it. “What do you expect me to do about it? We’ve not had much luck going after him before, and now he’s on good terms with at least a third of the Avengers, possibly half or more.”

Strange arched an eyebrow, looking mildly bemused. “Really? I know a pair of them are assassins, but honestly, they struck me as quite loyal.”

“It’s not your business, at this point, Doctor,” Fury warned, though he could already feel a headache coming on. “Keep an eye out for anything suspicious here on earth. He’s been doing Asgard’s dirty work lately, and so long as he keeps most of his current destruction out of our back yard, I’m not risking any of my teams by sending them after Loki.”

“Of course, I wouldn’t recommend sending even the Avengers, truly,” the magician agreed. “Especially not when you might instead send an experienced and powerful sorcerer long since entrusted by certain powers with the Space gem.” He smiled a sharp, satisfied little smile.

Fury’s eyes narrowed. “You’re certain that this gem wouldn’t be easily taken from you?”

“How could it be? Furthermore, how could he even get close enough to touch me, when all I need do is _be out of reach_. Handily,” he said, pulling a chain from under his shirt to display a large stone of deep, rich purple hanging from it, “I can be wherever it is I want to be, at any given time.”

After a moment’s consideration, Fury nodded. “Keep an eye out, and keep me apprised.” His lips twitched. “Also, don’t harm Tony Stark if you can avoid it.”

Strange blinked at that, bemused. “What part does Stark have in this?”

Fury almost recommended that the magician pick up a newspaper, but was feeling too irritated to spoil the surprise. “He’s close to Loki; they worked out a business deal, with Stark providing materials for Asgard to rebuild their ‘rainbow bridge’ and the pair of them got on like a house on fire.”

“That could prove unfortunate,” Strange mused. “I will take it into consideration.”

 

~~

 

Seeking his prey out in Alfheim, Loki required some small degree of anonymity to pass through the main city without arousing too much suspicion, or spreading too much more gossip than collected. Luckily, it was one of the realms unfamiliar with some of the god of mischief’s better disguises, one of which suited her purposes more than adequately: namely, the one which changed most of the pronouns one might apply to Loki. Escaping the more populated regions after confirming certain rumors, she descended into the darker regions of the forest, where all signs indicated that the keeper of the power gem had last sought sanctuary.

Dark and ominous forests in the realm of fae were not safe places even for most gods to tread, but Loki had spent more time in them than most of her kin, and had only come out the worse for it on about five of those dozen or so occasions. Cloaking spells in effect, Loki banished the alluring green dress in favor of more practical traveling clothes: trousers and a fitted tunic, which still––to the god of mischief’s amusement––managed to show off sufficient cleavage to potentially be useful for strategic distraction purposes. It had been some time since Loki had taken this form, and the first time he had felt comfortable enough to do so after learning more of his heritage. And what better way to re-familiarize himself with one of his preferred guises than to hunt whilst in it?

Ravens cawed nearby, a whole unkindness of them, low and argumentative. Loki listed in, but they really were debating, rather than observing any passerby, to the god’s minor annoyance. Creeping through the increasingly troublesome underbrush, the god of mischief found footprints of the appropriate size and shape, indicative that her prey had been nearby within half a day’s time. She knelt close, and examined them closely, noticing a trail of blood-drops parallel to them. A muttered spell identified it as the blood of a stag: Loki’s prey had carried a kill back to his camp, then. How fortuitous.

Loki followed the prints for nearly a mile, silent as a cat, keeping to the darkest shadows whenever possible: the dark had never been bothersome to her. She found more traces of her prey here and there: bits of torn cloth caught on the thorns of a bush, a few snares set out for smaller forest creatures.

She felt very close to her goal when the silence was abruptly torn apart by an inhuman roar, and the sounds of two trees being crashed into and snapped like enormous twigs. The cacophony erupted far too nearby, just to the east, through the trees. Loki could see splinters flying, and had already recognized the voice currently roaring something suspiciously like the name of a certain god of chaos and mischief.

“Oh, _shit_ ,” she muttered, and bolted like a hare toward where her prey should be. The best plan when one large rhinocerous-like enemy was after oneself, in Loki’s personal opinion, was to find another rhinocerous-like bystander/potential-enemy and royally piss them off, then stand between them and duck at the opportune moment.

Skurge, being twice Thor’s size with a worse temper than the average bilge-snipe, might even provide an opportune distraction for Loki to aim at her prey. The sound of demolished trees was getting louder, and she could hear the distinct rhythm of a very large axe being swung, hacking through them. Speeding up, Loki soon burst into... a very empty camp. The fire had even gone cold. No one had been there for a day at the least and there was a frankly suspicious amount of blood everywhere that definitely wasn’t from a stag.

The god of mischief proceeded to swear at length.

Then Skurge burst into the clearing, and Loki focused on nothing but self-preservation. And wasn't it astounding, Loki mused silently, just how the prospect of imminent goring or bisection by an oversized battle-axe could clear one's head. “Good evening, dear Skurge,” she called, sweetly as she could. “And how are you, of late?”

“Very well, little Aesir,” the half-giant rumbled. He was dark of complexion, red-violet in coloration as a result of his mixed blood, with eyes of steely grey. Whatever his non-jotun half was, it certainly wasn’t from a race known for its diminutive size and quiet, peaceable disposition. “I seem to have found the thief my mistress so longs for me to flatten, and then dice.”

“Well, I would hate to get in your way, then,” Loki mused, beginning to back away slowly, back toward the tree line.

Skurge squared off with her, raising his axe and preparing to swing. “I think not, little god.”

“Well, then.” Loki began to smirk. “You must not know me very well at all.”

Skurge flung his axe, and sent it crashing through the face of Loki’s illusion. Shortly after, he felt two long knives stab into his lower back, right into a few vital organs. He bellowed and spun, to find three Loki’s, spread apart, each watching him warily, shrewdly.

“Well then,” the god of mischief whispered, all three of her in eerie unison. “Make your move, dear Executioner, or do you not trust your own judgement?”

Skurge pulled his second axe from its place on his back and raised it, only for his first axe to slash the backs of his ankles: hamstringing him effectively. As he roared in pain and fury, legs giving out, he spun to lash out at the very real Loki of the bunch, who only back-stepped and grinned wide and blood-spattered.

Dropping Skurge’s axe to the ground, she waved at him cheerfully before teleporting away.

 

~~

 

Tony Stark had grown to resent events like this. He played nice while Pepper was looking, then lurked at the bar trying to ignore occasional advances from women who assured him that all he needed was a night with them and he wouldn’t waste his time with his  ever-so-male fiancé. It was more disconcerting than the usual girls of their sort he’d dealt with before, who seemed hell-bent on being the next one to last more than one night in his bed, the way Pepper had. People, Tony had long ago decided, were often bizarrely inexplicable, especially pretty and haughtily privileged ones who got drunk at parties attended by the very wealthy.

So he was sulking just a bit over a whiskey straight when someone equally inclined to escape unwelcome advances eased her way over to the bar, near Tony. She wasn’t facing him, but in his peripheral vision he could see an elegant black dress, slit up one side to incidentally show off emerald green lining on the interior of the skirt, and more prominently to display a flash of long, long legs.

“I’m certain that’s all very interesting, but I honestly doubt by fiancé would approve,” she said, playful and mocking with just enough flat refusal to allow no misunderstanding. The woman’s voice was low and smoky, with a familiar polished accent. Her left hand settled on the bar, a bit too close to Tony’s glass: titanium-gold alloy and blood-red diamond, with all those carefully woven and familiar lines.

Eyes widening a bit, Tony’s eyes wandered up from familiar long-fingered and elegant hands, only a little smaller and more feminine than before, up the length of exposed arm to the off-the-shoulder dress with its plunging neckline, whereupon he lingered only a half-second longer before continuing, up the slender neck (with the silver chain around it carrying that emerald Soul gem, he noticed) to at last settle on Loki’s face. He swallowed thickly. Thor had been right about recognizability: jawline a little narrower, nose a bit smaller, and the lines of those cheekbones only a little softened to appear less masculine. She was still a little taller than him, not just because of those nice little black heels, and she was also still very, very clearly Loki.

After a moment of staring, he shot the other man––not a member of the press, thankfully––a warning look. “I’m familiar with her fiancé and let me say: you might want to start running _now_.”

The man gave a nervous laugh, and darted away through the crowd.

Tony smirked a little and returned his gaze to Loki’s face. “Well, look at _you_.”

“I had a disappointing hunt in Alfheim,” the god of mischief said lightly, stealing Tony’s drink in a careless manner and starting to smile as she took a sip: the wicked curve of Loki’s lips in that expression was the same in either shape, apparently. “I felt in need of a night out.” She shot Tony an arch look.

The engineer’s grin only widened. “Pity then. If I dance with you now, they’ll just call me unfaithful.” He rested a hand over hers, thumb brushing along Loki’s ring finger.

Loki leaned a bit closer and murmured, “Since when do we really care?”

Tony’s smile became knife-sharp in response. “Well, you have a point.” He tugged on the god of mischief’s hand. “Come on, then.”

And because it was in a museum, with all of Pepper’s precious modern art in a gallery, the music was from a string quartet, currently playing a waltz. Considering he was from another world, Loki seemed suspiciously familiar with the steps, and Tony told her so.

“I’m a quick learner,” she said, “and I’ve infiltrated a few similar parties for fun before.”

“Oh have you?” Tony chuckled. “Mine, or someone else’s?”

“Well, one was some sort of fundraiser held by some people from, what was it... a Hammer corporation? Not my taste, but a good place to cause a bit of trouble.”

“Oh _that’s_ what that was,” the engineer mused, recalling the tabloid headline someone had emailed to him about the series of unfortunate events. “Well, I can hardly fault you for that at _all_.”

“The others were favors to Miss Potts, you see.” She smirked a little. “You were unavailable to make an appearance, so I made it for you.”

“Looking like me?” Tony actually perked up.

“Don’t get any ideas,” Loki warned. “I won’t attend your events for you; without your company they tend to be terribly dull.”

“I could say the same.” Tony let his hand slide up slightly, then down along her spine to rest at her lower back. “You’ve improved my evening significantly.” His smile only widened a little as they passed Pepper and Happy, both of whom shot Tony disapproving looks, which changed abruptly to confusion as they turned, and doubtlessly they noticed the ring his dance partner was wearing and put two and two together.

Loki glanced over her shoulder at them with a small smile. “I can’t stay long. The trail went cold in Alfheim, and I can’t let it get too much colder. The Power gem is the next easiest to locate, in theory, and the next-to-last one I would be most panicked to find Amora get her hands on.”

“The first being Reality?”

The god of mischief shook her head. “No, that one cannot be found any longer. It’s locked away quite securely, among those even gods dare not challenge.” She lowered her head a little, bringing her face closer to his. “The real concern is the Space gem. Transporting an entire army with it would be unwieldy, but far from impossible.”

“How long do I have, then?”

Loki hummed thoughtfully, eyes bright with mischief. “Well... when can we leave?”

“Now, if you like. I’ve made an appearance, and the photos will cause a minor scandal tomorrow: those are the usual two requirements for me at this sort of event.”

“Good,” Loki said, and led him from the dance floor. “Very good.”

As soon as they rounded a sufficiently secluded corner, Loki already meddling with the security feeds, they vanished from the party, and reappeared in Tony’s penthouse, whereupon the engineer found himself pinned against the nearest wall, Loki pressed up against him only a bit softer than usual, mostly due to the breasts.

Before he could say a word, the god of chaos was kissing him, slow and curious, hands running down his sides. Tony settled his hands on her waist at first, but curiosity soon impelled them to further exploration. The kissing was just as good as ever and Tony marked it under the “constant regardless of Loki’s shape” column. The only real difference was the feel of lean curves under his hands, and a bit less gravel-and-panther in the pitch of the noises Loki made: they were still low, still with an edge of purr, but softer somehow. Tony’s hands even found the same places that usually made the god of chaos shudder in male form, when stroked just right, had much the same effect in this one.

They broke apart for breath after a long, long time spent drowning, and Loki’s gaze was dark and hungry in a way that sent hot-and-cold chills down Tony’s spine. That was the _fucking you through multiple orgasms just to see if I can make you scream_ look, and Tony could only think along the lines of _yes please: table, couch, or bed?_

Running a hand up Loki’s side to cup a breast the engineer bit his lower lip, letting his teeth drag across it as he admired those really pretty amazing breasts for a second, then looked up and met Loki’s gaze with equal hunger. “Another time for this, then?” he panted, giving a little squeeze. Really, next time he was going to spend a long while giving those breasts a lot of attention: absolutely perfect.

“If you don’t mind,” Loki purred.

“We’re in accord. I’d rather like you to fuck me through the mattress, as well, tonight.”

The god of lies smiled wickedly as he could, which was wicked indeed, and placed a hand over Tony’s on her breast. “Afterward, perhaps you can get to know them better.”

“Damn. You are too goddamned perfect, do you know that?” Tony said with fervor, and pulled the god’s mouth back down to his, clinging through the next teleportation, then laughing when they landed on the bed sans clothing, and Loki wholly _him_ self, smiling against his mouth.

“As are you, you glorious bastard,” Loki replied, and kissed him again.

 

~~

 

The next morning, however well-shagged and pleasantly sore he was, Tony was still in no mood to be woken up to an otherwise empty penthouse by persistent alerts from JARVIS that Captain Nick Fury was making his way up through the usual security overrides to pay him an important visit.

“This’d _better_ be fucking important,” he muttered, and crawled manfully to the closet to retrieve a pair of jeans and the most irreverent T-shirt he could find at a glance. Finding none in the closet, he noticed an AC/DC one, soft with age, tossed on his dresser. He vaguely recalled Loki sleeping in it. Tony pulled it over his head and smirked to note it smelled a lot like Loki and a bit like sex. Perfect.

He’d settled on the couch comfortably by the time Fury got to the elevator. Either his security measures really were as good as he thought they were, or the S.H.I.E.L.D. director hadn’t really been in _that_ much of a hurry. “Hey Nick, good to see you. Care for a drink?” Yes it was nine in the morning, but Tony didn’t care. He wasn’t offering any of his precious coffee at this ungodly hour. He sipped from his mug placidly.

“Not particularly, no.”

Tony squinted at him a bit. “Do you _ever_ drink?”

“I still have this job, don’t I?” Fury countered.

“Point,” Tony muttered. “But you never drink with us here in the tower. Rude.”

“No. Professional,” Fury corrected. “It’s still morning, you know.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Go on, be professional. I’m listening.”

“I’ve gotten some disconcerting reports from one of our older consultants.”

“I don’t need to hear about you old flings, darling. I know I’m the one you love now,” Tony mocked, putting a bit of southern belle in his voice.

Fury glared at him. “He’s our consultant in matters occult, you could say.”

“You have a... who am I kidding, of _course_ S.H.I.E.L.D. has an occult consultant. What’s his name, Mr. Magic?”

“Dr. Steven Strange.”

Tony snorted. “So close.”

“He’s more than a little concerned about two Asgardian mages stirring up interest in the Infinity Gems, as I understand it,” Fury said guardedly.

The engineer’s eyebrows raised. “Heard about that, did he?”

“He has, and so have a number of his contacts with similar...” He gestured vaguely. “-connections to matters not wholly explicable by modern scientific means.”

Tony winked at him. “Working on it.”

“If you ever wink at me again, Mr. Stark, I will remove one of your eyes with a corkscrew,” Fury said in even, perfectly serene tones. “We can even have matching eyepatches.”

“Duly noted,” Tony said, cringing visibly. “So you’re saying he thinks they’re both up to something? Well, he’s not wrong.”

“How certain are you that Loki is to be trusted, Mr. Stark?”

Fingers itching for something to do, Tony had the distinct urge to make a drink just to distract himself a bit, but it was still too early even by his own warped standards, and Fury had already turned it down. _Pity_. He cleared his throat, “You can trust that he’s not actually trying to destroy or permanently damage the earth on any sort of massive scale, and you can trust him to keep my life and his as intact as possible. As far as S.H.I.E.L.D. is concerned, that’s about as far as I’d recommend for you, in the trust department.”

“Did he mention this Amora to you, and why she might be seeking out the gems suddenly? Seems she’s the unknown in Strange’s books; she’s the one with no direct connection to Thanos like Loki has.”

Tony considered for a long moment, choosing his words carefully. “They’re acquainted, and he may have stolen from her recently, in order to further his own plans against the big guy.” He made a face. “Apparently, she made the mistake of going to a seer and asking why Loki did it. She ended up catching a certain someone’s attention long enough for him to get a few hooks into her psyche.”

“And what about Loki’s psyche? Any potential hooks there?”

Glaring at Fury’s mildly condescending tone, Tony leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “You have a different consultant who already got a look inside Loki’s head, right? You won’t trust my answer, not on this one, so go ask the telepath who got the guided tour.”

“Loki could have hidden something from Xavier. His mind is heavily shielded, cloaked from his view.”

“But he’s not a telepath, so once he let your professor guy in, how much could he really manipulate, and not just conceal outright?” Tony countered. “Ask the expert; I’m new at this game and none of the books from this planet I can find have enough tech specs and sensible formulae fitting the known laws of physics in them for me to get much deeper without guidance. And the only guidance I’ve got is from someone I know you don’t trust, and who I don’t _recommend_ that you trust. You’re only asking me this question to see how I react and extrapolate from there how much you think you can rely on _me_.”

Fury nodded. “Very good, Stark. How far, then, can we trust _you?_ ”

Tony drummed his fingers on his knee for a moment. “You can trust me as an Avenger to be a functioning part of the team, albeit one with a penchant for questionable and reckless tendencies in the decision-making department. I won’t stab any of the others in the back, or you, or most any other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents I’ve gotten to know over the past several months, but I won’t trust a stranger just because they’re in a uniform with your logo, any more than you would after the incident with Barton on the helicarrier.” He leaned back in his seat again. “I have a line, though, where there wasn’t one before. Loki is mine, and I don’t generally like it when people mess with me and mine. If someone messes with him, and for some reason he can’t make it back to me, I’ll react accordingly, and I may not care _too_ much about what side they claim to be on. Capisce?”

Fury stared him down for a long few moments. “I think we have an understanding.”

“Oh, he also provided a sort of herbal remedy to prevent the sort of mind control he put Clint under before. Bruce has processed it, and it all checks out as non-toxic. Loki gave him the materials necessary to produce more of it, too, including a couple of interesting Asgardian compounds that Bruce says have a lot of interesting potential in their own right. I’d be willing to send S.H.I.E.L.D. a sample, if you’re interested.”

At that, Fury blinked a few times, eye narrowing. “Are you sure it works?”

Tony nodded, pulled up a tablet, and started displaying models, tests run, and blood work from two test subjects. “Natasha volunteered as a subject, and we’ve been keeping an eye on her for a few days: no ill-effects, no crazy changes in eye color, and no desire to do Loki’s bidding. She reported an unpleasant cold and constricting sensation when the scepter touched her, but not more than that. Clint confirmed that he felt the same thing when he was the, ah, subject the first time, pre-invasion. He then volunteered himself, and confirmed it felt the same, but the cold never reached his brain or threatened to ‘pull him out’ the way it did before.” A pause. “He then tried to stab Loki in the face, but no one sustained any permanent injury, and we’re all pretty sure that was Clint being Clint, rather than any side-effect of the spell or the preventative supplement.” He held out the tablet, letting Fury peruse it.

“And he just offered this as what, a freebie?” He shot the engineer an arch look.

“Well. Apparently the Avengers sort of owe him a favor: nothing life-endangering, but a favor nonetheless.” He shrugged.

Fury nodded, eyeing their test results again. “I would greatly appreciate those samples.”

Tony grinned, sharp and shining as a well-polished machete. “I thought you might. I’ll have Natasha bring a few next time she drops by for a mission or check-in, or whatever system you have set up with her.” He waved a hand idly, then took a deep breath, putting on a mask of perfectly arrogant carelessness. “Are we done here?”

Fury glanced briefly at the ring on Tony’s left hand and raised an eyebrow.

“I did say he’s mine.”

“Yeah, and so did the papers. Keep in mind that Strange isn’t the only one keeping an eye out for him, and may not be the only one who’s connected him to the highly visible-to-the-public little alien invasion in New York, which you may recall.”

“I seem to remember diverting a nuke into a portal to blow up an alien armada or something, yeah,” Tony muttered, though his eyes had narrowed a little, hinting at unease. “I’ll be sure to mention it to Avengers PR or something.”

Fury stood. “Be careful, Stark. Unlike most of the Avengers, S.H.I.E.L.D. has never had much control over people like Strange. We couldn’t stop him if we wanted to, unless you feel like lending out some magic-proof tech if you’ve got any.”

“Some, but not enough to help all of S.H.I.E.L.D., so I guess I shouldn’t chew it in class,” Tony countered. “Get out of my house, please.”

Fury snorted, amused, and headed for the elevator. “Your security’s improved, by the by,” he remarked, as the door slowly shut.

“Thanks, Nick,” Tony shot back, not bothering to put any effort into making it sound even a little sincere. He fidgeted with his ring, humming thoughtfully for a moment. “Better get the new prototype ready, then. JARVIS?”

“Yes, sir?”

“The new schematics from yesterday afternoon for extending that advanced disruption field? I want them ready for testing as soon as possible.”

“They should be rendered within two hours, sir.”

“Good.” Tony stood up, walked over to the nearest display, and started repairs on the protocols Fury damaged. By the time the S.H.I.E.L.D. director left he building and the elevator was free again, those were up, running and improved, while Tony himself dropped down to his private lab. “JARVIS, while we’re waiting on those, see about prepping the Mark IX for a test run, too.”

“With or without spinning rims, sir?”

Tony considered “With, this time. Might as well, while I work on the field generators.” He stepped out of the elevator. “Dim lights, up schematic displays.” He started to grin a vicious, openly hostile and sharp-edged sort of grin. “Let’s play.”

 

~~

 

Clint glowered at her across the counter. It was 4am: bonding time for the insomniacs, in this case the two part-time S.H.I.E.L.D. assassins fresh home from a mission. “So. Pepper’s _engaged_.” He was mostly irritated because he hadn’t even known that, but he knew that Natasha had.

Natasha blinked at him over her coffee. “And?”

“He might approve of you, but there’s officially no way we could work me in, here. He’s very straight, and he’s not the type I make the rare exception for.” He raised an eyebrow. “You _did_ verify with him...”

“Oh yes. He was fine with it, after some persuasion.” Natasha considered for a long moment. “Though I suppose you otherwise have a point; he really isn’t your type.”

“I need a drink,” the archer sighed.

“I have video,” Natasha said in airy, innocent tones. “If that might help you feel a bit better.”

That gave Clint momentary pause. “Good quality?”

She nodded. “I was thinking we could view it later.”

“... Okay. Yeah.” Clint licked his lips. There were times that his unique relationship with Natasha really did seem too good to be true. “We’re good, then.”

“So. Shower?”

He grinned with a low, lascivious hum. “I’m up for that.”

Then the alarms went off, all at once, and both assassins frowned at them.

“Goddamn super-villain cock-blockers,” the archer muttered. “Can’t the others handle this?”

 _Code red. All available Avengers assemble_ , the alarms countered.

“Cap is away on the helicarrier helping with some training exercises,” Natasha sighed. “And Bruce is on conference.”

“Cock-blockers,” Clint repeated. “All of them.”

 

~~

 

The alarms hadn’t actually been set off by the series of explosions in downtown New York, or the fires that started as a result. Tony was grateful and annoyed by this in turns. Grateful, because it gave him a chance to get that aerial scan and recognize the figure at the heart of the destruction, and stare for a full three minutes as he tried to process it, without any of the other Avengers giving him sympathetic or dirty looks.

“Oh _shit_ ,” he bit out, continuing to stare. “This had better not be what it looks like or I will kick your skinny Jotun ass.” He closed his eyes for a moment, scrabbling frantically for calm and rational thought, which was a difficult endeavor at the best of times. Opening his eyes, he re-examined the displays carefully. “JARVIS, double-check the color calibration on the image. Contrast the green color here in the flames with the green here.” He tapped the scepter-wielding figure’s coat-tails.

“Significant difference in hue.”

“Pull up the tapes from the remote production lab, flame tests.”

On the next nearest display, he tapped the green-and-gold flames engulfing the target Loki had been in the middle of reducing to ash. “Compare contrasts again. Are the flames the same green?”

“No sir. It’s a bit closer to seagreen. It also has a different energy signature.”

Tony slumped back in his chair. “Oh good.” A pause. “Except that it’s not. Shit! JARVIS, take all the readings you can on the energy signatures, contrasting them with our records on Loki. Put the new stuff in a folder marked ‘Amora’ and get those field-generators equipped on the Mark IX: I want that armor to melt anything like a spell that hits it.”

“Right away, sir.”

Tony leapt to his feet, finding the largest open, clear patch of floor in the lab. “Also, if you can, make sure you get scans on this.” He eyed the green stone in his ring thoughtfully, and muttered the words Loki had made him memorize until he was sure he could enunciate them clearly backwards in his sleep. He then added, “Come on, honey, you’re gonna want to see this.”

The air around him stirred, then began to move very quickly, forming a small and highly localized tornado in the middle of the lab. Tony kept on his feet in front of it with an effort, staring as a point of familiar dark-green light formed in the eye of the tiny storm. “Advanced science my lily-white ass: that just shouldn’t be possible,” he muttered, then raised an arm across his eyes as the light turned painfully bright. A loud crack ensued, followed by the sound of glass cracking, then shattering outright: two of the nearest windows broke apart just as the transport signature––apparently similar to that of some of their enemies other than Loki––set off ALL of the alarms.

Loki knelt, his clothes smoking a bit, in the middle of the now-messiest section of the lab. He peered up curiously, looking a bit winded. “That was actually––smoother than expected.” He went to stand, and listed to the left heavily.

Tony darted over and helped him a bit to his feet. “Dare I ask what you were expecting?”

“Well. Last time I saw someone attempt something like that, between realms, they may have spontaneously caught fire upon arrival.” The god of mischief then got a good look at his lover’s grim expression and sobered quickly. “What is it?”

The engineer started to talk, but the sound of another explosion from the site downtown distracted him. “Easier to show you. Come here.” He tugged Loki to the displays just in time for the fresher flames to die down, and the figure in the midst of the chaos to appear again.

Loki’s expression darkened. “Amora. It has to be.” He tapped the screen, zooming in on the figure, tapping on it twice to get a lock for the camera to follow. “Do you notice something, a pendant, there? Can we get a clearer image?”

Tony leaned closer. “JARVIS? Compile footage, focus on armor and accessories, particularly between neck and sternum. Get us a good render.”

“Right away, sir. Other processes on your current to-do list are 60% complete, and observational scans of subject Amora are in progress.”

“List?” Loki murmured.

“You think I’m just going to stay here?”

The god of mischief looked about to argue, but visibly hesitated, knowing that telling Tony Stark _not_ to do something reckless was a good way to get that something done. He half-smiled, a bit exasperated, and said simply to the room’s AI, “Pull up the render.”  
JARVIS did.

Loki cursed. “Power gem, around her neck.” He all but snarled and hit a few commands, pulling up the comm for all Avengers in the building. “I’m calling in that favor.”

Natasha was the first to respond. “Loki? Is this really the time?”

“It certainly is. Work on evacuation and whatever other heroism you’re inclined to, but leave the dirty work to me. This one is mine, and she will not be walking away from this without a few scars, even if she somehow manages to gets away from me still breathing.” He closed the comm, and glanced at Tony. “If you get killed following me, I’ll bring you back to kill you again myself.”

“You can do that?”

“Not easily, and it’s never pretty, but I can do it on a sort of temporary basis, yes.” His lips thinned. “That said, I’d really, really rather not.” He pressed a hand over Tony’s arc reactor. “And please, I can ask this of no one else sincerely: _trust me_.” He then vanished in his usual manner, leaving behind a crack and a bit of smoke.

Tony swore. “JARVIS, give me status.”

“Sixty-eight percent, sir, even without spinning rims.”

He opened the comm. “Tasha, Clint, you there?”

“What was that about, Tony?” Clint barked. “We’ve got live footage in: explosions and fire so green it looks seasick.”

“There’s someone orchestrating it, like they’re trying to summon something.”

“She’s trying to get Loki’s attention, I think,” Tony said.

“Why do you think that?” Natasha asked.

“Because she’s wearing his face, and his armor, and carrying a familiar-looking scepter, let’s say.”

“How do you know it’s not him?” Clint countered.

“Because I summoned him to my lab and scorched my floor in the process, Clint. I can do that, by the way. Long story. JARVIS?”

“Seventy-four percent, sir. Estimated time until we’re ready for launch: twenty minutes at the least,” the AI responded.

“Dammit.”

“We’re headed there now in the Quinjet, Tony.”

“Stick to evacuation duty and keep civilians out of sight from a rooftop perspective anywhere near the flames. We don’t want anyone tempted to snag potential hostages. I’ll be there in about twenty.”

“Seriously?” Clint shot back.

“I only have one magic-resistant prototype, you smartass sonuvabitch, now get out there!”

 

~~

 

 

Loki landed in the flames, but was unbothered by them. His armor and clothes were woven with spells to resist it, and all he really had to to was think very cold thoughts for the rest of him to be equally resistant: a task aided by the glowing blue casket in his hands. He shut his eyes tight, focusing more energy into it than he’d previously dared, as he set off his blood kin’s weapon of choice. He shuddered at the feel of the winds picking up around him as it clashed with all that fire.

Ice crept up along the burning buildings, melting fast and thoroughly dampening all that had been burnt. Wooden struts and metal beams groaned, becoming brittle and dangerously unsafe after such abrupt temperature change, but still slightly safer than when they’d been actively on fire. Loki opened his eyes, striding forward and leaving swift-traveling waves of ice in his wake as he headed for the eye of the now-collapsing firestorm, his gaze fixed on the impostor wearing his face: an illusion, rather than a shape-change, a paltry glamour that should fool no one with even a smattering of the gift, but few in Midgard seemed to possess the gift to such an extent.

It didn’t take Amora too long to notice him. Her eyes were aglow, ice-blue from lid to lid, interrupted by overlarge patches of dark in the centers, like little windows into endless void. “There you are: the unbroken pet. Whatever took you so long?” she said, in a voice not quite her own.

Loki put on an unaffected mask and shrugged, carefree and relaxed as though he were strolling through the park rather than across the rooftop of a recently-burning building. He saw Amora flinch as he drew close enough to really chill her. Now, even around the furthest edges of the conflagration she’d caused, the flames were being chased by heavy frost and smothered by the resulting damp. “Well, it’s not easy to notice someone in Midgard parading about with my face on, when I’m realms away in Dvergarheim.” He smiled a friendly, charming smile. “How’s being one of the broken pets working out for you, Amora?”

She dropped the glamour and smiled a dead smile, unperturbed even as the last of her flames were snuffed out. The blue glow of the scepter became her own pale green, and the gleaming silver of it turned to brass and gold. “Well, it has its perks.” She raised her scepter and fired an explosive burst of flame at him, all pale green and amber.

Without hesitation, Loki raised the casket and fired again, focusing the blast so it deflected hers. Then both lowered their weapons for a moment.

“I don’t recall you being blue before, now I think of it,” she remarked.

“Yes, well, apparently I was adopted.”

“That explains so much,” she mused.

“Why? Given your taste in lovers, am I meant to wonder whether you were attracted to me?” he countered. “Horrifying as that thought may be.” He was forced to respond very quickly to block the next attack, stepping closer even as he did so. “Yes, how is your Skurge lately? Or rather, how are his delicate ankles? You really should be careful what poisons you put on his blades, especially if you might have trouble countering them yourself.” Another burst of flame, another blast of cold to combat it, though it was more of a struggle this time and Loki swore.

“Thanos is concerned about you, these days. He can’t keep his eye on you too well. You could be up to anything.”

“Oh, do let him know I _have_ been.” He ducked the next blast, rolling to the side and blasting at her directly.

She leapt aside with a snarl and shot back, only to break an illusion-Loki. Cursing, she spun around, scanning for him. “Let him in, Loki, or he’ll have to break his way in.”

From just over her shoulder, Loki’s voice whispered, “Well, that would be a disappointment for all concerned, wouldn’t it?”

Amora spun, lashing out with flame, and only once she turned around fully to face only empty rooftop, did Loki appear behind her and deftly cut the chain keeping the Power gem around her neck. “Wrong way, darling.” He caught her arm as she tried to face him, heedless of the red stone falling down her chest plate toward the ground. Loki twisted so abruptly that he heard bones crack, then shoved hard at her hip, throwing her off-balance. While she recovered, he swiftly scooped up both ends of the broken chain, reeling in the Power gem so it hung close to his fingers, but not touching, and took a few steps back. “The problem, you know,” he said sadly, “with broken pets, is that they’re _broken_ a bit _too far_ and can’t keep up with those whose minds are a little clearer.” He held up the gem. “The Amora I’ve known would have half-gutted me before I could get halfway to breaking her arm, but _you_ my dear, are not all _there_ , now are you?”

“You know I’m not,” she snapped, cradling her injured arm. “And you know why. You led me right to him.”

“I can’t be blamed for every mage who tries to see what I’m up to and happens to look into an abyss that destroys their sanity and lets something else in. None of us can. It’s part of the magic _business_.” He stepped closer, and smiled when she stepped back. “Now, now, why so uneasy? You have your master supporting you, do you not?”

“Yours too, if you recall. You owe him a debt.”

Loki smiled thinly. “A debt. Well. I suppose that might be implied.” He shrugged. “The important thing about being the god of lies, chaos and mischief, is understanding that which I’m opposed to: order, truth, and bland goodness. I know _all_ of the rules; how else would I break them?” He grinned, bright and brilliant and knife-sharp. “It’s good to know such things, before applying your own rules, no matter what magic stones you carry or what hooks you have in a little god’s psyche. I am compelled by my very nature to carry out my end of any _deal_ and _agreed upon_ trade: something of mine for something of yours, or his, or whoever it is I am negotiating terms with. Funny words, are they not? _Negotiate_. _Agreement_. _Terms and conditions and rules_.”

Amora’s eyes narrowed, and it was clear someone else was looking through them now. “What are you suggesting, little liar?”

Loki laughed, low and carefree as a particularly malicious child. “I’m suggesting that I’m best left unbroken, if you plan to keep me at all,” he twisted, changing course with a flick of the wrist and not a single twitch of change in his expression. “I’ve got the power gem, and I’m sane enough to keep track of it instead of waving it about on the rooftop.” He pulled at the chain around his neck, bringing out the other gem, dark green and a bit luminous, to rest outside his armor. “And I picked _this_ up ages ago. Clearly, I’m doing much better than this new acquisition of yours.”

Amora began to droop, as though energy were draining out of her. “You would do well to let me see your achievements yourself, rather than through the eyes of such an _acquisition_ , little god.”

“Yes, well.” Loki folded his hands behind his back, thumb absently brushing back and forth across the chain that the power gem dangled from, still careful not to touch the gem itself. “Keep in mind there is a reason you left me unbroken. It was a recommendation of your lady was it not?” _If anyone is owed a debt in that cold and barren home of yours, it is your lady, and I dare not wonder what she might ask of me._

The enchantress’s mouth opened as though to speak, then closed, eyes narrowing, her body straightening back up. “Someone is here,” she said, in a voice half-hers, and half that of the hooks in her mind. In the next moment, it all went wrong.

Loki heard a spell called out from somewhere behind him by a deep, baritone voice: no hesitation, all assurance. Amora dropped like a stone, the glowing light in her eyes extinguished by the force of those dark words, and she crumpled to the ground.

“Who in Odin’s name-” Loki turned his head and felt gold chain ripped from his hands. “ _Shit_.”

“What was that, again?” the voice inquired, amused and cold and confident. Loki tried to move again and failed: held in place by an outside force. “You mentioned something along the lines of having caught these gems, and about how you were sane enough to keep track of them instead of waving them about on the rooftop?”

The god of mischief winced as he felt the soul gem plucked from around his neck. “I was unaware Midgard had any sorcerers of caliber sufficient to cast that sort of banishment spell.” With considerable effort, he turned his head to face the magician. “Let alone any that certain guardians might entrust with the Space gem. Bravo.”

Dr. Strange smiled unkindly. “I seriously doubt you can talk me around to your side of things, Mr. Lie-smith.”

“Oh, ye of little faith,” Loki countered, smiling fierce into the fire. Sure, he couldn’t move any part of his body, couldn’t cast any of his own spells, but never let it be said that in a situation wherein all odds were against him, Silver-tongue might be at a loss for words. “Really, you should know better than to believe anything I say to other people, especially while eavesdropping. Isn’t that usually a plot device in numerous Midgardian dramatic plays and ‘sit-coms’ you all view for entertainment? Someone is being clever, lying to get out of a tricky situation and _oh dear_ , someone who doesn’t trust them has overheard it and is now convinced that the deception is the truth. Really now, don’t be so _predictable_.”

“I will admit, that might be persuasive, if not for the addition of circumstantial evidence. Firstly: you are a first-class liar and all of the oceans of the world made dry would have not enough grains of salt for me to take your words with. Secondly: there is a tether, anchored in your mind, leading back to that monster formerly possessing your little friend there.”

“She’s hardly my friend, to be fair. Look: I just told the truth! Ask her yourself.”

“She’s unconscious.”

“I’m patient,” Loki assured.

“I am not inclined to be so patient with _you_.” Dr. Strange circled around him, looking him over closely. “Though while you’re feeling ‘honest’ I might as well ask what it is you had planned for these little gems.”

“Well, admittedly, I’m partial to the green one, and might be inclined to keep it. I think it brings out my eyes.”

“Yes, your clothing makes clear you have an affinity for the color. And the Power gem?”

“Well, it was going to be a toss-up really; I could either leave it in relatively safe keeping with my father (who already has his own cube-shaped source of unlimited power) or allow my lover to make an in-depth study of it.”

Strange shot him an arch look. “Your lover.”

Loki glanced pointedly at his own left hand and, with again far more effort than such a small movement merited, wiggled his fingers illustratively. “I’m engaged, you see.”

“That’s unfortunate,” Strange said, raising the soul gem. It glowed for a long moment, then ceased abruptly. The magician narrowed his eyes. “Interesting. You found a means of preventing it from taking your soul.”

The god of mischief would never admit it, but that was about when he broke out in a cold sweat, because there were fewer events that might lead one to strongly suspect that sweet-talking had failed than someone’s attempt to collect one’s soul mid-conversation. “Yes. How else do you think I got hold of it?”

“How indeed,” Strange murmured, stepping closer, muttering and running a hand over Loki’s forearm. A few runes flashed in the air, then faded. “Oh, that’s _clever_. And a bit morbid, really. Isn’t that spell usually used with intent to torture and interrogate someone past the point of death?”

“It suited my purposes,” Loki said simply. “Binds the soul to the flesh.”

“Yes: be the flesh living or no. I don’t think I recall any other records of someone casting such a gruesome thing on _themselves_.”

“I didn’t plan to wear it permanently, though you’re making me glad I put off its removal,” Loki countered.

“Well, don’t be too glad. With these gems, well...” the magician smirked dangerously. “Whenever two or three are gathered together, they shall bend the rules a little. And here we have Space, Power, and Soul: control of objects and mass, a storage cell for souls, and the brute strength to make sure the portal to the Soul gem’s little pocket universe will open wide enough to fit the whole of you.”

Loki swallowed thickly. “I really would not recommend that.”

“Of course you wouldn’t.” Strange’s eyes flickered as he cupped all three stones in the palm of one hand.

“No, I _really_ wouldn’t!” he shouted. “I have references! Trustworthy witnesses! Don’t you try to out-reckless-decision me! I committed treason in Asgard as _prank_ , and called the Hulk a dull creature to his face: you really shouldn’t even _try_ to outdo me at this!” The last shout faded into a cry of pain as he vanished.

Strange hissed a little as the Soul gem overheated in his hand just enough to blister his skin. “Well, that was interesting.” He tucked the space gem back under his shirt and held up the other two for a bit closer examination. “Perhaps I should keep them on one chai-”

And that was when the man in the very heavy metal armor plowed into him at over seventy miles per hour, making it a very lucky thing indeed that the magician managed to keep hold of the gems he had in hand. Sorcerer Supreme he may be, but invulnerable to sudden brute force akin to being hit by a very compact but heavy sports car, he usually was not. Having the Power gem helped considerably, especially with the rather painful landing shortly thereafter. Sputtering, he stared up into the metal mask of the (in)famous Iron Man.

“Where is he?” the armored man asked, low and dangerous.

“Ah. Do you mean Loki?”

“Yes.” Iron Man shot a quick, sharp blast at Strange’s hand, surprising him enough to loosen his grip, sending the red and green gems skittering across the rooftop. Strange cursed and abruptly willed himself to a standing position several feet from the man in the weaponized armor. He shot a spell meant to cause confusion, and was disconcerted when in dissipated on contact with Stark’s armor, never touching the man within. Ignoring him, the engineer pulled off one gauntlet, plucked the Soul and Power gems from the rooftop, and then let his faceplate retract. His expression was grim.

“Ah,” Strange said, sounding off-balance. “Fury did mention that you were on good terms with him.”

“I seriously doubt he told you it might be a good idea to _go after_ him,” Tony said, taking a step closer, and another. His voice was very low, very dark, and utterly unamused. “And that’s a _fine_ understatement you just made there.”

“I get the feeling I’ve missed something,” Strange muttered. He felt a jolt then, deeper than flesh, deeper than bone: soul-deep, in fact. It was a warning tug: not enough to rip his soul away, but definitely enough to leave it feeling bruised. And there was a lingering pressure, letting the magician know that attempting to flee would be a very bad idea at present, if he wanted his soul to follow where his body moved. “He was working with one of the most dangerous beings who has ever lived!”

“The one with the _carefully restricted_ hook in his mind with all the barriers built around it? Thanos? The sonuvabitch who would most likely take out Earth for fun, and Asgard for the thrill of burning up a whole pantheon? And you know, Asgard is the only place Loki’s always been certain he wants to preserve.”

“For a hostile takeover, maybe-”

“That’s just it, though, isn’t it? Think, magic man. Even if you only credit him with the worst intentions, it makes no sense. How can you rule a place that’s been destroyed and rendered barren? Who would want to rule a pile of ashes? And that’s all Thanos really leaves behind, from what I’ve heard.”

The sorcerer looked increasingly perturbed. “How do you know all this? You never exactly struck me as a man interested in more than science and engineering.”

“Yeah, well. I fell in love with the god of mischief and lies; we actually have a lot in common. He even made me near-immortal, via apple-theft. Now, you can _try_ and _fail_ to use that purple rock of yours to get away from me before I rip out your soul and ask _it_ what you’ve done with Loki, or you can bring him back as fast as you possibly can. Your choice.” He raised an eyebrow. “Make it.”

Strange stared at him wide-eyed for a long moment, then cursed under his breath. “He’s in the soul gem. Getting him back out might not be an easy task, however, given the spell he put on himself that made it an effort to get him in there in the first place.” He inhaled slowly, and let it out in a stream of obscenities. “I’m going to _kill_ Fury for not warning me about this.”

“Well, it’s just one of the hazards of being all loose-cannon all the time,” Stark said sharply. “You should stick closer to 60% loose-cannon with reckless poor decision-making, and 40% grounded by earthly responsibilities.”

“You would be expert, I suppose.”

“Not really: gifted amateur. In theory, you’ve been at it for about a decade longer than I have, and should probably have gotten the hang of it by now.”

“This is not making me any more inclined to get your betrothed out of that gem.”

“Conceded,” Tony agreed, “so long as I have your binding word––between you the mage, and me the freshly-baked demigod and all but honorary citizen of Asgard––that you’ll actually do it, and not vanish the moment I let up the hold I’ve currently got on your soul.”

Strange’s lips twitched. “You have my word.”

“Good then. Also, while we’re at it.” Tony glanced down at Amora, still unconscious. “I recommend sending her straight to Odin’s throne room. They’ll be _thrilled_ to see her.”

At that, the magician smirked. “Now that, I will do gladly,” he concurred, and did.

Tony closed the distance between them, still not letting up his hold on Strange’s slippery, obtuse and dark little soul. He held up his bare hand, palm-up to display the stones, but when the magician reached for them Tony _tugged_ again at his soul. “Tell me what I’ll need to do. And let me borrow the one around your neck; I get the feeling it’s involved.”

“You seem a cynical and distrustful sort of man, Mr. Stark,” Dr. Strange observed, even as he pulled the chain and Space stone up and deposited them in Tony’s hand. “How you came to trust the _god of lies_ I’m not at all certain I understand.”

“Like I said,” Tony reminded. “We have a lot in common.” He felt buzzed as soon as the Space gem touched his skin. “Oh, hello, now we have a magic gem with a decent visual interface. That’s excellent. Much better. What now?”

“Now, I need a very large drink, and a means by which to draw a lot of diagrams if you plan to insist on doing this yourself.”

“Well, pardon me for being less than trustful of you at the moment, Doc.”

The magician considered. “Come to think of it, I had a similar response when someone kidnapped my wife.”

“We have an understanding then. Now, teleportation.” Tony started to grin. “I don’t suppose I could keep this one?” He started to aim it, could feel the world fade around him just from the force of his own will, transporting them effortlessly into his lab.

Dr. Strange glared at him. “No. You may not.”

“Trade you the red one?”

The magician hesitated for a moment.

“Just think it over, eh? I’ve got a number of my own power sources and I’m already as physically resilient as the average Aesir. You could likely benefit from it more than I could, really.”

At that, Dr. Strange narrowed his eyes with a bitter, self-deprecating half-smile. “I begin to see how you and Loki might have some common ground.”

“Just think on it. Now. JARVIS? Suit.” A wall of machinery fell between himself and the mage for just over a minute, then retreated, leaving Tony in jeans and a slightly worn AC/DC t-shirt. He plucked a large panel display from where it was folded on a nearby worktable. “One drink, then diagrams, got it?”

“Yes, I think I understand now,” Strange muttered, staring with some interest at Tony’s engagement ring. “I’m still going to make Fury miserable over this.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Dr. Strange quickly begins to regret one or two life choices, Loki falls apart and then doesn’t, and Tony continues to be a badass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> " _Just like those fibs that pop and fizz_  
>  _And you'll be forced to take that awful quiz._  
>  _And you're bound, to trip_  
>  _And she'll detect the fiction on_  
>  _Your lips and dig a contradiction up_."  
>   
> 
>  
> 
> \-- Arctic Monkeys, “Dance Little Liar”

Falling into a pocket dimension which preferred to contain metaphysical, rather than physical-physical objects, was not a pleasant experience. Being forcibly flung into it was even less so.

The Soul gem was old––older than any other life form, older than all the known galaxies. It did not like redefining vast tracts of its internal structures for the sake of one mere little god, but it allowed the paradigm shift, however reluctantly; in the face of the combined effects of two of its fellow gems, it had no other option. As such, it spared no mercy to the creature handed over to its care, caught up as Loki was in the shifting of spaces within spaces, energy storms of vastness and complexity that had no right to be contained within an object so small. Limited by shape and size on the outside, the living gem had grown more and more complex _inward_ in order to house, display and observe its unique _collection_ and keep itself entertained.

Between the leap from the vast exterior space into the little miniature shard of separate universe between facets of the Soul gem, and the shifting and reshaping the gem had to do, connections Loki had to the outside world began to fade––except one, in particular, which yanked out with unbearable abruptness, taking more architectural supports and debris with it than Loki had been prepared for: his connection to Thanos, firmly uprooted by the magics within the gem.

Accordingly, Loki screamed, though it made no sound.

Slamming all of his mental shields up, snapping closed the gaps in his armor he’d been forced to leave open before, the god of mischief curled up in a ball and focused on breathing and on repair, gritting his teeth through the pain and snaring shards of memory and architecture before they could drift or fade away entirely. It was unclean work, and took up most of his attention for what felt like hours. Hours of falling and fracturing and burning.

Then again, work on one’s own mind using techniques from the astral plane affected one’s chronological perception badly enough. Factor in that time was different here within the gem, and it might have been little more than a few seconds in real-time.

Loki registered, distantly, that he still seemed to be falling, drifting, dropping like a stone through crystalline emerald void. As he slowly re-emerged from his own mind (unsteady, his astral form’s punch-drunkeness carrying over into the physical: it felt as though he’d garnered the sort of concussion that’s generally accompanied by a gaping head-wound) and began getting his bearings, Loki determined that he was not falling straight down, but instead being routed endlessly down through flickers of unnerving, eldritch architecture. It was disconcertingly non-euclidean at times, bringing memories of another fall, through a different void, and glimpses of things along the way that had no right to exist in a quasi-sane universe. He was being _processed_ , he realized, and felt his stomach turn to lead as the full implications of his overly complex predicament sunk in. _Not good. Not good at all._

Little pocket dimensions like the one within the Soul gem had been useful to mages since the very dawn of their craft’s invention. Loki himself used several small ones: secret places close to his skin, always within reach, whether or not he had sleeves to cover their invisible seams. They followed him like loyal pets, requiring no real energy expenditure, bound to his soul and his flesh both: inextricably intertwined with the magic in his very veins. They held his most treasured possessions, and a few of his most powerful weapons. One of them was nothing more than a glorified hiding place, in case of some emergency.

If he had been able to move when Strange’s intentions––to exile him into the stolen Soul gem––became clear, then Loki would have vanished into it in a heartbeat.

The tricky thing about pocket dimensions, even ones created by oneself, was that even the simplest and most basic of them were incredibly tricky for even a talented and experienced mage to get back out of without either A: help from outside (unlikely) or B: it was specifically designed with a key and door within it (notoriously labor-intensive, tricky, and prone to problems) by which to trick it into redirecting oneself back into the outside world proper.

Loki got the distinct feeling that the latter option had never been viable at all for the Soul gem, while the former might have become nigh impossible due to a combination of his own cleverness and that Midgardian sorcerer’s meddling. He shut his eyes and settled in, waiting for the inevitable crash landing. Until the gem had finished translating itself to support him outside this unsettling limbo, he would have, literally and figuratively, nothing to stand on, no foundation off of which he might build a plan.

He tried not to think about his last experience with a long, long fall into an abyss. He did not succeed, and was left with nothing to seize on to distract himself from pain and freshly cracked-open banks of memory from that anchor’s removal.

It was only himself and his thoughts in the dark, and his mind was nothing if not restless and prone to curiosity-inspired wandering that bordered on self-destructive.

 _Not again_ , he thought vaguely, feeling cracks already forming at the edges of his self-control. _Not so soon, not again._ He covered his face with his hands and felt a faint hum from the metal on his finger, which felt fever-warm compared to the rest of his hand. Loki stared at it, and glanced in the general direction he presumed to be up. The connection between the ring and Tony should be stretching to near the breaking point by now––unless...

Unless Tony Stark had managed to get the Soul gem in hand himself, and away from that wretched sorcerer. Loki felt his heartbeat stutter unsteadily for a few moments, unsure whether to be proud, horrified, or worried sick. How had he gotten hold of it? How long could he really _keep_ ahold of it?

Loki raised his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, keeping the ring close to his face even as he did. “Tony,” he whispered, trying to reach out, but feeling no response: his magic dulled, if not entirely disabled, in this place. He couldn’t send a message along the bond, could not say any of the myriad things on his mind: the fears, the need to warn him ( _cracking again, falling again, don’t let me hurt you_ ) and a similar urge to tell him to drop the stone and run...

Loki could say it all into the void, but he knew the sound would never travel.

He remained, for all intents and purposes, alone in the dark, except the fever-warm ring on his finger and a sense of loss as the cracks in his control only deepened.

 

~~

 

One of the first experimental tests Tony decided to run was both practical, and immensely satisfying.

“So, what I’m wondering is...”

Dr. Strange looked up, then felt a very swift sense of regret, discomfort and soul-deep terror; this was because his soul proceeded to flee his body and get sucked into the Soul gem. He had long enough to get his bearings there, noticing a variety of other lost souls looking at him almost boredly before glancing back at a nearby crater. Strange met the eye of the creature collapsed in the middle of that patch of scorched earth.

Loki glared up at him, livid with the rage of centuries, and with a darkness that hadn’t been there when last the sorcerer had looked at the trickster god: something freshly woken, freshly revived. It was not a sane sort of dark, and Strange felt abruptly aware that he had just angered an infamous trickster millennia old and expert in the art of making other people miserable.

Then the pull returned and within just a few moments, the sorcerer’s soul was slammed back into his body, which had apparently collapsed ungracefully on the bench in Tony Stark’s lab that he’d settled on earlier. Gasping for air and shuddering with lingering traces of cold and visceral horror, Strange was still aware enough to hear Tony finish his sentence.

“...if it’s quite so easy to do that to _you_ , then why precisely is retrieving Loki such a more challenging thing?”

Strange squeezed his eyes shut, pulling his composure back together with a herculean effort. Slowly sitting up in the chair properly, he shot the mad engineer a livid glare. “You may have noticed that my body did not follow into the gem.”

Tony raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, why exactly is that?”

“It’s not designed to support that sort of thing. It’s for collecting _souls_ , not imprisoning enemies; there are a number of far simpler pocket dimensions that even novice mages can access, or even make for themselves, for that sort of thing.” Strange crossed his arms over his chest defensively, and in some small part to ward off the lingering chill on skin that threaten to sink all the way to his bones. “Your lover found a way to prevent his soul being torn from his body––however unconventionally.”

“He did mention that. He wasn’t thrilled with the idea of removing it until he was certain that the Soul gem wouldn’t be used against him by Thanos or anyone else currently after him these days.”

“Yes, well. You might have noticed that I found a work-around for it––equally unconventional.”

Tony’s eyes narrowed shrewdly. “Of course you did. Using these, doubtlessly.” He held up a hand, Soul gem between thumb and index finger, Space between middle and ring, Power between ring and pinky. He eyed the stones thoughtfully. “So, what would happen if I tried to pull him out the way I did you?”

“He would come out in tatters, body and soul, most likely,” Strange said. “The Soul gem was designed to contain the _metaphysical_. The whole of the gem is unlikely to adapt itself for a single passenger. Unless you know precisely where he is in there, and can draw him out without taking him through any sections of that pocket-dimension incapable of translating between physical and non-physical, there’s a great deal of risk involved.”

“So we need to determine his physical location in a small bubble of space containing a ‘pocket’ dimension not originally intended to support traditional organic matter, or indeed any matter other than the vague sort that seems to support structures telepathic, astral, dream-related, and otherwise metaphysical,” Tony extrapolated quickly, staring into the Soul gem now in a calculating manner. “When you sent Loki in, you altered some of the Soul gem’s original nature, forcing it via the other two gems to adapt around your will, and what you intended to do. That means the dimension in there has gone, or is going, through a state of transition, in order to cater to your little work-around. We’re lucky the whole damn OS didn’t just crash and cause the Soul gem to implode.”

Dr. Strange stared at him in disbelief. “Have... have you been learning magecraft?”

“I’ve been deciphering it. There’s a subtle difference,” Tony muttered, absent-minded. “I’ve been studying Loki’s ‘magic’ for some months now.” He started to smile unpleasantly again. “Now, you said something about diagrams?” He traced a few commands on a nearby display, and four more large touch-screens flickered to life. “Where do we start?”

 

~~

 

Loki narrowed his eyes at the sorcerer’s apparition as it faded, and slowly began to smile. “Looks like a test run,” he rasped, then looked around at the small crowd of souls at the edges of the still-smoking crater he occupied. It had been a gentler landing than the last time he fell into the void, but only because he’d hit dirt and sand instead of solid rock, and the local population didn’t yet seem imminently hostile.

“Who are you?” asked one of the souls. He looked like a warrior, though in Loki’s personal opinion, going mostly-bare-legged into battle had always seemed less than wholly wise, so the man’s relatively short leg-coverings seemed more than a little odd. In life, to judge by his current appearance, he had very tanned skin and fair hair. “And how on earth is it you still have a body?”

The god of mischief laughed: a low, rasping and mostly-humorless sound. All sorts of things about him were looking cracked around the edges just now: all of his jagged, sharp edges aimed outward defensively. The result was that he lost some of his charm, in favor of cold and the desire to cause as much harm as possible with his every word. “I am Loki, of Asgard, and I am burdened with an inglorious downfall.” He sat up slowly, hearing a series of small cracks and pops: some bones merely snapping back into place, others snapping back together where they had fractured. Nothing poking into his lungs or other vital organs this time: he really _had_ lucked out, then. The thought made him giggle briefly, with only a bit of a hysterical edge.

“We can see that,” observed another soul: not at all human in shape, but nor was he of a form Loki recognized from within the nine realms. There was something about their curiously placid stares that irked him, made his skull itch.

 _No. Wait,_ Loki thought, his expression turning more shrewd again. That itching wasn’t in his skull. It was at the edges of his shields, his mental armor: still defensively pulled tight and close, strongly enough to make his temples ache. There was something scratching, trying to get his attention and asking to be let in. It sounded harmless, but Loki knew better. Those were claws doing the scratching, and he would bet anything that they were likely to be quite sharp. “There is something in your minds, is there not? Something shared.” _And insidious_ , he did not add, when he saw the nods of near-serene acceptance on all visible faces.

“This is a peaceful place,” the fair-haired warrior said. “We all share a dimensional consciousness, and sense of well-being.”

A muscle in Loki’s jaw twitched. “Well, I’m afraid I really must be going, then. I don’t–– _do_ peaceful very well.” Peace, stillness, and tranquility were something he could only handle in certain doses, preferably when there was something––or someone, if Tony happened to be available––else to hold his attention. Seeing these almost blissfully calm faces, Loki felt an itch of restlessness under his skin. Too long spent in the quiet, with nothing but his own thoughts, especially right after that fall through the verdant void still fresh in his memory, had no appeal at all.

There were _things_ he’d seen in the fall from Asgard, in the realms _between_ , that were best left forgotten and buried deep in the recesses of his memory. They were too near the surface now, thanks to that fall through impossible gemstone architecture and near-constant silence. Boredom and peace were the very _last_ thing that the god of chaos and mischief required right now––not when it meant he would then be forced _hear_ them _skittering_   and slithering unctuously through dark corners of his brain: an impossible, appalling itch.

The warrior in red and gold, with sun-tanned skin and an air of unflappable serenity about him, shook his head. “You should let us in, then.”

“I’ve had enough foreign matter in my head of recent,” Loki snapped. “I will not be so _sedated_ here.” _No matter how it may appeal, in comparison to dwelling on old nightmares_. He shivered slightly and shook his head to clear it of such a thought. “I don’t suppose any of you here have also resisted the general peacefulness of the place?”

“No. Some did, at first,” said another inhuman figure, this one with at least six limbs and a face that combined aspects of horse and insect all at once. “But no longer.”

“Oh _shit_ ,” Loki breathed, running a hand through his hair and staring skyward bleakly. “This doesn’t bode well at _all_.”

After a few moments, however, he was aware of a susurrus of whispers, in equal mixture curious and uneasy, from the formerly peaceful crowd of souls. He looked up, and realized that some of them were uttering a particular word, in several different languages. Loki sat up further, unsure whether he should be grateful or further dismayed. Then at last he made out the word, just as the crowd parted to let someone through. “ _Mistress_ ,” they were whispering. “ _Mistress. Mistress._ ” Many of them left the edges of the crater, vanishing off into the rest of the landscape.

A tall, elegant lady appeared at the edge of the crater. She nodded at the gold-haired warrior, who bowed deeply, and left along with all of the others. The lady was pale as sun-bleached bone, with eyes dark from lid to lid, except at the very center, where they glowed almost silvery, as though each eye contained a dying star.

Loki swallowed thickly. “Ah. Mistress Death,” he greeted, standing up less than gracefully, in order to bow. He never took his eyes off of her, feeling the world come abruptly back into sharp focus for a while: the prospect of imminent death always had that effect on him. The abyss shrank back before survival instincts strong enough to have kept an annoying trickster alive for millennia. “To what do I owe the... honor, of your visit?”

She shook her head a little, and beckoned him with a long-fingered hand. Only briefly did those fingers and her smooth visage flicker, showing only skeleton in their place. Then her less harrowing appearance replaced it, not-quite-smiling.

With some reluctance, Loki climbed up to the edge of the crater (not too deep, but his feet were still unsteady, making it more of a challenge than it had any right to be) and rose to his feet again beside her. She was very beautiful, and pitiless, and pale. “I believe my daughter warned me of this.”

Mistress Death reached up with a pale hand and the god of lies squeezed his eyes shut, but managed not to flinch as her fingertips danced from his temple, up and back across his skull. He felt some of his pain ease, from where that damnable anchor had been torn away: recovery hastened just enough that his tunnel vision faded for a while, and the world was no longer framed in statically shimmering silver and red.

Loki’s eyes fell open. He bowed his head as her hand pulled away, unable to keep the surprise out of his expression, if only for a moment, before one or two of his sturdier masks fell back into place. “Thank you.” He met her gaze with his own. “I have, I think, much to thank you for, in regards to the integrity of my warped little psyche, have I not?”

She smiled, then, bitter and ironic, and nodded.

He stared at her, and suddenly realized, to his immense relief, that she was not going to take his life today––not when she stared at him like that: cool, appraising, and expectant. She must have some _use_ for him. One corner of his mouth curled up, just a little. “I presume you’ve come to ask a favor or two in turn for sparing me back then?”

Again, Mistress Death nodded. She rested a hand on his arm, and began to lead him away from the crater, and up a nearby hill, where trees were more sparse. Why this pocket dimension had a forest, Loki had not yet brought himself to question. If it was truly so idyllic as the local population implied, then a vast garden and woods to wander in would not be altogether out of place, he supposed.

The god of lies let himself be led to the top of the hill. When Mistress Death looked straight up, he did too, and noticed once more that the sky was a shade of vibrant green. He saw a few crackling jolts of energy dance across it and narrowed his eyes. “Something isn’t right,” he murmured.

“Someone is holding the door open for you,” said a cool voice beside him, whispering like smoke and the grave.

Loki turned to stare at her, his throat tightening. Hel had warned him that she would speak to him, but he still felt deeply disconcerted. Death was many things, but verbose was not one of the top 100 traits attributable to any of Death’s myriad manifestations as they appeared throughout the universe.

Mistress Death smiled a little. “You have three of these gems, and you need little more than that, Silvertongue, to do what I require of you.”

“I had not realized my reputation was taken quite so seriously by... by...” By manifestations of natural forces of the cosmos even gods feared and respected. The god of lies cleared his throat, abandoning that train of thought. “You’re implying, then, that I would have access to Space, Soul, and Power. There is much I can do with that combination, but it will do me little enough good if he tears my mind apart and I haven’t the will to use any of it.”

Her hands on his arm tightened their grip a little in what might have been a comforting squeeze, if they had not been mere bone at the time.

Loki felt a different sort of presence pushing at one of the gaps in his armor. This one was gentler, though, and knocked politely. He stared at Mistress Death.

She nodded.

Hesitantly, he let her in. His eyes went dark from lid-to-lid briefly, as she showed him images: first of deaths on a massive scale, then of Thanos at his throne calling for new messengers, new anchors to send to the nine realms. Loki saw the vast army gathering far below Thanos’ high throne, and heard the dead, locust-like buzzing of their ranks, distant and hungry.

“I am death, but I am also subject to the form in which I manifest,” Mistress Death said softly. “I have begun to love him, but he cannot continue to bring only death where he goes, with conquest after conquest, seeking to control forces he has no right to in order to have more. He must be brought low, crushed under the weight of failure, before he can be free of that madness. You, of all creatures, surely understand this.”

Loki’s eyes cleared and he returned to himself, shuddering as he felt her presence retreat from his mind. His assorted interlocking barricades clattered shut in her wake. She did not stop them. “I do.” He suppressed a near-hysterical laugh. “You’re intentions for me, all this time, were to have me turn his world on its head and wreck him for you?”

She nodded. “I am meant to collect those who die once they belong to me, not be the sole reason for so many deaths, as though I were merely a goddess and required such petty things as offerings.”

“Well, you’ve certainly contacted an expert when it comes to humiliating people and ruining their plans.” He was getting ideas now. Space, Soul, and Power. He could prevent the army from ever arriving. If he handled it with _particular_ cleverness, he might even avoid getting too many new scars on his already battered psyche. His smile was humorless, and terrified, and cold. “I’ll have to run it all past my consultant, but I will seriously consider it.”

Mistress Death smiled a bit more warmly at that. “He looks for you, but cannot see. You need to make yourself visible.”

Loki raised a hand with intent to launch a few flares, then frowned. “Ah. Lack of magic. And I don’t suppose any of these trees are actually flammable?”

She shook her head, releasing his arm and backing away from him, still smiling even as she faded, then vanished entirely, from view.

“Just lovely. Why on earth did mortals ever get a kick out of this ‘being sent of a quest’ business?” he muttered under his breath. He was exhausted, and still not entirely himself, and more than a little irritated with the world at large. “Wait, is it all magic, or is it merely magic which expels a good deal of energy?” he mused aloud. Gesturing vaguely, he grinned bitter and sharp when the casket of ancient winters appeared between his hands. “Question answered. Excellent.” He shifted from Aesir-pale to Jotun-blue with remarkable rapidity, as he accessed powers latent in his blood: natural rather than supernatural. The casket hummed in his hands, the eerie blue light taking up all of his attention. He had never used it’s full capabilities before, never dared open so much of himself to a power source that mingled aspects of the tesseract with the raw, natural powers Jotuns of frost were known for. The tesseract had done more to drive Selvig mad than Loki had; just because it was full of brilliance and light did not make it less of an abyss, when infinity was still involved: be it infinite energy, or infinite emptiness.

He had already all but agreed to aid Mistress Death, and thus doomed himself to once more face Thanos and that damnable gem that had done almost as much damage to his sanity as his fall through the abyss had. Given the choice between waiting around this tranquil pocket universe for the quiet and peacefulness to drive him mad, or leaping headlong into the breach and the chaos of his own accord while risking still deeper madness than he already possessed, for Loki it was hardly a choice at all.

The god of mischief closed his eyes and _pulled_ from the casket, letting it light up his mind and body like an entire ice age worth of christmases. The air around him first chilled, then froze, and then slowed down and became brittle. At the core of the storm of ice, as all moisture in the air fell to the ground and shattered the blades of grass to powder, Loki remained safely above the temperature of liquid nitrogen. Beginning at a radius of ten feet away from him, however, sections of the world around him dropped to absolute zero, where not even individual atoms retained enough power to quiver.

 

~~

 

After several minutes bickering over complex matters of space-time, complete with three-dimensional models of phenomena ranging from black holes, to Loki’s most basic conjuring tricks, Tony declared, “Look, okay, I think I’ve got an idea. Just sit back, Mr. Wizard. Let me run some tests.” He ignored Strange’s sputter of anger and turned away. “JARVIS, run scans on all three of these, would you?”

“Of course, sir,” the AI responded, making Strange jump only slightly. The AI had been muted previously, and Tony grinned at the sorcerer’s reaction. “Using the same parameters as with Loki Lie-smith, I presume?”

“You got it.” Tony transferred all three stones to his palm and held them up. Lines of blue light immediately began dancing across them, reflecting strangely off and around some of the facets in each turn. He held them up for those preliminary scans as he strolled over to another section of the lab, activating one or two larger machines which extended more powerful scanners on large arms around him, whirring and sending still more intricate webs of cris-crossing light across his skin: scanning the stones, and their wielder both. He was peripherally aware of the sorcerer leaving the bench and strolling over to get a better look.

“What are you looking for, precisely, Mr. Stark?”

“A starting point. JARVIS, bring up an enlarged three-dimensional schematic of the Soul gem, will you?”

Just beside Dr. Strange, a model of the gemstone appeared, drawn in green light with an intricate tracery of thinner blue lines around it, mostly within, but also forming a thin aura around the gem itself. “The blue lines...”

“Energy, of that weirdly unique magic-y sort. Some of it forms shapes almost like a cloaking spell, but not quite: more like the enveloping quality of it without the concealment effect. It’s definitely a sort of prison,” Tony murmured. “Much more complicated than the ones Loki keeps up his sleeves. Now, let’s see...” He moved the Soul gem to his left hand so it rested in the middle of his upturned palm, keeping the other two clutched in his right. He focused on the Soul gem closely. “JARVIS, I want that schematic showing changes in real-time.”

“Certainly, sir.”

The thin tracery of intricate blue around the gem began to retreat, no longer an aura, but a glow from within. Strange twitched to feel that _tug_ again. “I _really_ wish you would _STOP_ that!”

“Just teasing the gate open, relax. I just had to make it think it was getting another taste of you, but I’m not planning to send you back in on recon... yet.” Tony’s smile was humorless and sharp, clearly aimed at the magician; although his eyes remained fixed on the Soul gem.

The schematics showed the glow swirl outward through the large front facet, first conical, like a tornado yet to touch ground, then it twisted just a bit further, reached a bit further, and unfurled.

“Snapshot that, make another schematic for it to the left of the first for reference,” Tony bit out, trying to keep focus, keep that gate open. “How does that look, Strange? Think we could drop in a probe?”

“A what?”

“We need to know where Loki is in there, so we need reconnaissance from something that will give us those specifics,” Tony managed, cursing when his hold on the narrow gateway slipped a little. He remained quiet for several seconds, forcing it back open. “I can see in there a bit, spatially speaking. The place is big, but not bigger than a small moon by a long shot as you suggested: more like an island. JARVIS? Wake up one of the unmanned gliders for aerial scans.” Sweat broke out on his forehead. “This thing _really_ doesn’t like staying open.”

“It’s hardly meant to, unless it’s taking in or ejecting souls,” Strange countered. He stepped aside as Dummy came forward from behind him, carrying a glider the size of a small spaniel, its sharp and narrow wings folded close to the main body of the little craft. “It was more than a little effort to get it to accept a physical body with a soul in it––something inorganic like a _machine_ may be rejected outright.”

“Well, it had to adapt to one non-metaphysical object, no reason the other shouldn’t be compatible enough to at least gain entry,” Tony countered. He closed his eyes then, as red-violet light leaked between the fingers of his right hand, which tightened its grip around the other two stones. “Alright, Dummy,” he said tightly, as the wind around him picked up. “Listen to uncle JARVIS’s calculations and drop that droid into the middle of the little vortex on my mark.”

Dummy made an agreeable whirring sound, and raised the droid up until it was directly above the now-glowing green stone in Tony’s hand.

“Now,” Tony snapped.

The robot fell, then vanished in a blinding flash of retina-searing light. Tony held the gate open for a few more seconds with an effort, then felt it suddenly cease to resist half so much. “JARVIS, are we getting readings?”

“Yes, sir––remarkably fast.”

“How fast?”

“We already have an hour’s worth of scans.”

“Time distortion,” Tony panted. “Interesting. Give me an estimate on how much distortion we’re looking at.”

“It seems to vary, sir. In some places the readings come in with truly rapidity, but as we get closer to the ground it becomes less disparate. Estimates are that on the ground, time only passes three times as quickly as outside.”

Tony shook his head, muttering about folds and micro-folds in space-time. “Any hint of Loki’s energy signature?”

“Negative, sir. There is considerable interference in that regard.”

“There’s enough power in the gem itself to dampen even a god’s power. It absorbs energy like a leech from those within it, as well,” Strange interjected. “He will be without his magic, at a guess, though he should otherwise be fine.”

“No such thing as jet-lag for the soul?” Tony glanced briefly at Strange.

The magician considered. “Difficult to say. I was there but briefly, and the general battered feeling might be purely due to your manhandling of my soul ever since you picked up that gem.”

“Don’t sound so embittered. Think of it a tough life lesson.”

“Full scan of the interior region supporting traditional matter and physics is complete, sir,” JARVIS chimed in. “The volume of the non-metaphysical section seems to be no larger than two cubic miles, though that does seem to be increasing slowly, by small increments. Beyond that area is considerably more landmass, but of a decidedly less traditional physical nature.”

“Time passed for the drone?”

“Two hours.”

Tony nodded thoughtfully. It was slowly getting easier and easier to keep the portal open, and he could vaguely sense the position in space occupied by his drone even from the other side now. He could also feel something pushing against it, attempting to force it back toward the open gate. “You were right about the gem rejecting machines, Strange. It doesn’t like the drone in there, but that’s not a bad thing.”

“How so?”

Tony’s shoulders relaxed as he became just a little less aware of his own body. His brain was full of the Space gem’s unique interface: half-sensation, half-sight, with a hint of schematic overlay that seemed to have adapted to his perception style. “All I have to do is keep it there, and it won’t shut. It sure as hell doesn’t want to keep my drone around by closing the gate too early.” He felt an almost painful jolt of resistance up his arm from the Soul gem and smiled. _Easy, now_ , he thought at it. _Just trying to fix it for you so you don’t have to bother with all this anymore. You want to go back to the way you were before, don’t you, before the bad old magic man messed with you?_ The gem hummed in his hand, but remained mostly-uncooperative––except that Tony’s view of that little pocket-dimension, through the Space gem, got a bit clearer. “Good boy,” Tony muttered.

“What was that?”

“Nothing. Now, once I find him, how would you recommend I extract him?”

“Just as you would bring your droid back. The Space gem has a good deal of control over the movement and relocation of objects,” Strange said. “And from its perspective, people do count as objects.”

“No worries about him being shredded, then?”

“Not if you actually manage to somehow find him. Without any ability to signal for aid by magic or-”

An alert noise chittered from a nearby touchscreen, and Tony began to smile in earnest now, but with no less viciousness. “Well. How ‘bout that?”

“Major atmospheric change detected by the drone, sir. Getting a closer read on the source now.”

“What sort of atmospheric change?” the sorcerer inquired.

“Temperature, Dr. Strange,” JARVIS answered. “Consistent with scans from an artifact in the possession of one Loki Lie-smith: a casket which once powered the last stronghold of the frost giants before the end of their war with Asgard.”

“A what?”

“Oh, by the way, did you know he was adopted?” Tony grinned at Strange’s expression of bemusement. “He’s not really Aesir by blood, so he doesn’t need magic to really shake things up, especially not armed with tech from his birthplace.” He could feel it now, an eerie stillness where before the Space gem had previously detected only movement and growth. Something was really cooling things the fuck down, over there. He isolated it, found a small-seeming, solid set of objects at the middle of the storm of cold. “Found you.” He couldn’t see details, but schematics from his improvised interface with the Space gem mapped the overall shape clearly enough: a humanoid figure, possibly armored, holding a large box-shaped object which seemed to be at the exact center of all that ice business. Tony lifted his left ring finger to his lips and brushed his lips across the green stone in his ring. “Easy now, Loki, easy.” The cold was starting to fade, then, but he couldn’t tell if it was Loki running down, or his own whisper. He counted to three, and pulled and aimed the stone away from him, at the already scorched bit of lab he’d summoned Loki to earlier in the evening once already.

Another blinding flash of light blazed. This time the force of it might have knocked the stone from his hand, if he hadn’t wrapped its chain tight around his wrist and thumb. This time it came with noise, and not just a little of it: a crash of one larger object falling to the floor in a heap, and another being flung hard into the opposite wall of the lab where it smashed into pieces. The former, as the smoke and dust cleared, knelt weakly on the floor catching his breath. The latter had a fire extinguisher applied to it by Dummy.

Loki gestured vaguely, vanishing the casket and lifting his head slowly. Unfortunately, he hadn’t quite landed such that his gaze fixed on anything particularly soothing, and his eyes instead met those of Dr. Strange, who was staring at him with a mixture of bemusement, astonishment, and fear. The god of mischief, weary to his very bones almost to the point of collapse, fixed on the jolt of seething anger for support, and started to rise to his feet. “You,” he snarled, red eyes blazing, “I should tear you open and strangle you with your own entrails you pompous smear of excrement from the bowels of a diseased elderly bilge-snipe!” He took an ominous step forward, but halted abruptly when Tony appeared in front of him; although his gaze remained stubbornly fixed on the magician.

Strange considered flight, but the quick warning glance the engineer shot him was enough to keep his feet planted where they were. Terrified of the half-maddened frost giant though he may be, he still didn’t want his soul removed for a second time at all, let alone just less than an hour after the first time.

Tony fixed his attention on the god of mischief. “Loki,” he said, low and warning. “I know that look.”

“Hardly,” Loki muttered.

At that, the engineer’s eyes narrowed. “Well, even if I didn’t, that reply would be a good indicator. Look at me.”

Loki growled: an inhuman sound. His expression was cold, and there were dark circles around his eyes, nearly black against his otherwise blue complexion. He was visibly bristling with homicidal rage, and starting to smile a broken smile at the same time. “Just a moment,” he purred, and moved to side-step around Tony.

“Oh _no_ you don’t,” the engineer snapped, seizing the front of Loki’s cloak with one hand and yanking him back into place before him. Between his own apple-enhanced natural strength, and the boost of the Power gem in his other hand, it was frightfully easy to maneuver the god of lies. It also helped that Loki was clearly at less than full strength. “Loki!”

At last Loki met his gaze, his red eyes were not quite focused, seeming to stare through him rather than at him. “What?!” he snapped.

At that point, Strange decided, for the sake of self-preservation, to quietly retreat to another section of the lab, out of hearing range, and quietly asked JARVIS to bring up a real-time playback of the display model, to show the shape of the energy and space-manipulation involved. When they recalled he was still present, he had no doubt they would prefer he hadn’t been watching.

“You’re the one who asked me to drag you back when necessary,” Tony bit back. “And you’re looking even crazier than that security footage from in the vault before you took the tesseract.”

“Odd, that it survived the blast.”

“It wasn’t recorded locally. Broadcast to remote servers. I designed their systems, you see,” Tony said, and clenched his jaw when he noticed Loki’s focus fading again.

“Fascinating, but I have a small matter to attend to before-” He began to pull back.

Tony dropped the stones into one pocket and reached up with both hands, this time gripping the back and sides of Loki’s neck and pulling him down until they were eye to eye. It hurt. _Oh_ it hurt, and despite the near-invulnerability from the Power gem that prevented him actually getting frostbite this time, Tony gasped from the pain and bit his tongue to keep from cursing. He stared hard into Loki’s now wide eyes, and hissed, “Don’t even think about it, darling. I pulled you out of that thing, and I’ll drag your ass back down to earth if it kills us both, and you know it.” He stared hard into the mad incomprehension for a few long seconds, and felt the skin under his hands become a little less unbearably cold. “That’s it.”

Loki blinked a few times quickly, disconcerted, the pains in his head and all through the rest of his body once more becoming cacophonous and distracting, forcing him to ground himself on something. _Tony. Tony Stark. Excellent plan. Excellent anchor point_ , he thought vaguely, his eyes regaining focus. Loki then abruptly realized how cold his own skin was, and recalled how such violent cold could cause the appearance of blackened, cold-scorched skin on any human or Aesir he might touch. He could see pain as well as determination in Tony’s expression, and instinctively tried to jerk away with a curse, but Tony held fast: stronger than he recalled, strong enough to... to... _to pull me back_. Loki met his gaze again, regaining warmth from a few of those half-cracked thoughts, and from Tony’s hands both. The thaw was so abrupt that his skin felt bruised in its wake. “Tony-”

“Don’t you pull away from me,” the engineer snapped, low and forceful: just too fierce to be a whisper. “Not now. Don’t you dare.”

Unable to verbalize, Loki merely relaxed his shoulders deliberately, and let Tony pull him down still closer until their foreheads met.

"When I said you're mine, I meant all of you: this too. So don't you dare pull away scared now,” Tony hissed, his voice growing a bit unsteady toward the end.

Loki felt his knees weaken, and any remaining fight drain out of him. As a result, when he gripped Tony’s waist and tried to pull him closer, he wound up pulling them both to the ground as his legs gave out. Tony followed, didn’t seem at all inclined to pull away. “I’m sorry,” Loki said, barely a whisper, his eyes squeezing shut.

Tony exhaled a long, ragged breath, feeling the corners of his eyes burn. “Don’t. Don’t be.” As the god of mischief slumped forward in exhaustion and hid his face against Tony’s neck, the engineer murmured into Loki’s hair, “I just want you back, and alive, and mine: that’s all I need. Alright?”

Loki nodded. “Yes.”

“Agreed? Yes.”

“Yes. I have no idea what I could have possibly done in all my years to deserve you, but yes, and yes.”

Tony chuckled, low and only a little broken. “For fuck’s sake, I thought I’d lost you,” he managed, sounding only a bit strangled, burying one hand in Loki’s hair and dragging the other down Loki’s spine.

The god of chaos felt very small, then, compared to how vast and impossible the sensations he felt were. Too big, too good, to the point of pain, and he only gripped Tony tighter, wanting more, possibly until it killed him. “I thought so, as well.”

“Lost me, or yourself?”

“Both. Not good at all,” Loki muttered, blinking in surprise when he realized that his eyes had begun letting tears escape at some point. That explained why his voice kept occasionally turning creaky.

“Well, you have me,” Tony said, soft and close, nose still buried in Loki’s hair, his lips now brushing his neck. “And I have you. And we both have to deal with an obnoxious sorcerer in the corner over there likely doing his best to ignore us so we don’t kill him to maintain assurance of his silence about all this.”

Low and tired and breathless, the god of mischief laughed. “Now if only I could stand, we would be perfectly fine.”

“You don’t need to. Just need a chair or something. One with wheels, maybe.”

“This would require you to move, would it not?”

“Not necessarily.” Tony glanced across the room at the office chair he’d “adapted” for lab usage. He absently tugged at it with a couple thoughts along the lines of _force, momentum, 48 degree angle_. The chair rolled across the floor, slowing to a stop right at Loki’s side. “I’m keeping the Space one. It’s been decided.”

 

Loki raised his head and blinked at the chair in mild bemusement for a moment, then smiled, weary and self-deprecating. “I suppose it would suit you.”

“Even if it doesn’t set off my eyes the way this one does you.” He pulled the Soul gem from his pocket and glared at it. “Still want it?”

“I think it only fair,” Loki countered. “How did you get it from him?”

Tony offered a half-smile at that and settled the chain around Loki’s neck, tucking the pendant back under his hair and armor. “I caught him by surprise. I’ll show you the footage later. C’mon.” He pulled Loki to his feet and settled him into the chair, then pushed him toward the corner Strange was hiding in. Tony whispered low in Loki’s ear, “If he makes any sudden moves, just yank on his soul a bit; it works wonders for keeping him in line.”

“I was wondering how you’d done that. Lovely idea.”

Tony paused only for a moment to send the rest of the Avengers the official all-clear. Clint demanded a full briefing on, “this crazy fire-and-ice _bullshit_ ” sometime that evening. Tony assured him vaguely, jarred to be reminded that it still wasn’t even quite dawn. It’d been one hell of a night... and morning.

They came to a halt behind Dr. Strange, whose shoulders stiffened visibly.

Loki cleared his throat. “You’re very, _very_ lucky that we plan to let you live.”

“We do?” Tony inquired.

“On one or two conditions. He _did_ unjustifiably imprison a citizen of Asgard for supposed criminal intentions which I believe have since been proven false?” He glanced at Tony, who nodded slightly. Loki grinned, then, crooked and unnerving as the sorcerer at last turned to face them.

Dr. Strange looked suitably uneasy. “It was an honest mistake.”

“It was an error of judgement,” Loki corrected. “You were intent on considering me an enemy, despite mere conditional evidence and knowledge of my prior misdeeds.”

“You nearly leveled New York,” Dr. Strange shot back.

“And you nearly brought about war with Asgard,” Loki countered, his voice cold. “Odin has more than aware of my current schemes up until present, including the hunting down of certain gems. He was also aware of the little anchor-point Mistress Death’s would-be lover had hooked in my mind.”

At that, the sorcerer appeared a bit put out. “I see.”

“Really,” Loki mocked, “If I weren’t at least intermittently honest, how would _anyone_ even half-believe any of my lies in the first place?”

“Point taken,” Strange said coldly. “You mentioned conditions?”

Loki’s smile widened disconcertingly. “It’s within my right, as a prince of Asgard, to obliterate you body and soul for your offenses against my person, but I will happily spare you in exchange for a deal: you will owe me one very _significant_ favor. When I make my request of you, unless I actually ask you to commit suicide, you will be obliged to at the very least _aid_ me in my endeavors.”

Dr. Strange looked uneasy. Deals with devils were one thing: easy to manipulate, twist or get out of. The gods of Jotunheim, Vanaheim, and Asgard respectively, were an altogether different set of beasts––like fae, but worse. “I accept your terms,” he said flatly but with conviction, despite the chill that rolled down his spine before he even finished saying it.

“Very good.” Loki nodded.

“Now, I would recommend that you leave,” Tony said coldly. “And if you ever pull any shit like that again where myself and mine are concerned, I’ll gut you myself with a dull scimitar.”

Strange looked mildly disconcerted to hear quite that sort of viciousness from an _Avenger_ , but nodded. “Point taken.” He raised both hands, palms forward in a gesture of surrender, and vanished from the tower.

Loki sighed and let his head fall back to rest on Tony’s arms where they were folded on the top of the chair-back. “I suppose it’s now your turn to teleport us to bed for once.”

Tony smirked at him. “You really _are_ drained, aren’t you?”

“I can’t move my legs,” Loki said flatly. “It’s remarkable that I’m still conscious, actually. I think it’s that I’m becoming thick-psyche-d in the same way that Thor became thick- _skulled._ ”

“Yeah, but I like that your sort of insanity is at least resilient.” Tony drew his fingertips across Loki’s brow, pulling loose strands of hair out of his face. “You have some new plans though, don’t you?”

“The beginnings of them. Not fully formed.” The god of mischief let his eyes fall shut for a moment, eyelids fluttering at the touch. “I’ll tell you all of them, I promise, once I’m capable of more coherent thought than at present.” His eyes opened again slowly. “I thank you for that.” He raised a hand with an effort and rested it on the back of Tony’s neck. “Thank you.”

Tony rested his forehead against Loki’s, letting the weight of the god’s hand guide him down. “I did promise, and I do really want to have you––all of you.” He felt Loki’s grip tighten a little, then relax.

“You have me,” Loki said, voice raw and soft with tiredness and unaccustomedly total sincerity: no masks, no misdirection, no games––not even a single little whisper of lie. “You have me, and I love you so much it hurts.”

“Good. We’re even, then; it’s the exact same for me, you know.” Tony sighed against his hair, running one hand through it, stopping gently when he found a few too many tangles to comfortably continue. “You have me. And I love you.” He kissed Loki’s forehead gently, and willed them both out of the lab, sending their clothes to the floor and themselves into his bed, whereupon Loki tangled up with him like a very friendly octopus, his face buried against Tony’s neck, breathing him in deeply with each lungful of air. “Hey. Hey. Easy.”

“Neither of us is very easy, really,” Loki muttered. “We’re terribly difficult people.”

“Yeah, well. Simplicity can get pretty boring.”

Loki’s breathing slowed as he began to relax against Tony’s warmth. He considered saying any number of things. _I met death, and thought I was going to die. I sensed you had the gem and was terrified it would get you killed. I thought I was going to go mad in there such that even if you’d gotten me out, I dare not think what might have happened as a result. I owe Death a very large favor, and I have to hope it won’t destroy me, or fail and destroy everything._ Instead he lifted his head and caught Tony’s mouth in a slow, lingering kiss, that expressed everything that lurked behind those words, coloring them with fear and love and need.

Tony returned it, just as hungry, just as desperate and hopelessly possessive.

They broke apart gently, mutually, in order to breathe.

“You need sleep,” Tony said softly. “We have work to do, I think.”

Loki nodded. “Unfortunately.”

“Then rest, love. We’ll deal with it when we’re both awake.”

“Good plan. I like your plans,” Loki murmured, let Tony pull him back down, and let his exhaustion wash over him like a tidal wave. Sleep came swiftly, and his only dreams were of soft blue light and Tony Stark’s heartbeat intermixed with the hum of the arc reactor.

Tony lay awake, watching him, and listening to every breath and move of his lover, trying not to think about how fiercely his heart burned with ache and joy at once. “I plan to keep you,” he said, in more of a soundless breath than a whisper, “of course it’s a great plan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, this chapter was trickier than the last one. Sooo much going on. Also, pardon my magical-realism science-and-magic-overlapping babble that I keep dropping here and there. I'm a nerd, you see.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brief interlude in which the dancing, for a while, stops, and they can breathe again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> " _And the clean coming will hurt_  
>  _And you can never get it spotless_  
>  _When there's dirt beneath the dirt._ "
> 
>  
> 
> \-- Arctic Monkeys, “Dance Little Liar”

Nick Fury was not surprised to find Dr. Steven Strange in his office again so soon, nor was he surprised by how battered and irritable the magician looked. “I take it you got in a bit over your head, Dr. Strange?” The old soldier closed the door and locked it for good measure, walking around the magician to sit at his desk.

Strange sat across from him, looking sullen, drained, and deeply offended. “Suggesting that ‘the pair of them got on like a house on fire’ is a far cry from perhaps mentioning, ‘they happen to be affianced.’”

Fury indulged in the rare opportunity to smile unkindly at someone who had been irritating him for years, and just gotten their ass kicked quite deservedly, which he’d had a hand it, however minor. “I warned you that it was not your business yet. That should’ve been enough to keep you from doing something too stupid, I thought.”

The sorcerer’s eyes narrowed. “Was this then your way of teaching me a lesson?”

“I won’t say that it wasn’t an incidental bonus.”

“Look, really, Captain Fury, why didn’t you warn me about this from the beginning?”

Nick Fury stared him down for a long few moments, until Strange’s anger dissipated a bit, replaced by a bit of unease. “Given you are not a part of any team under my control, or the Avengers initiative, I didn’t think you needed me to relay the personal information of one Tony Stark to you.” A pause. “Especially given that I couldn’t pass a newsstand in the street without at least one tabloid loudly broadcasting Stark’s engagement, half the time featuring a photo including Loki, albeit under the name ‘Luke Lysmthe’, but that’s not a difficult one to see through. Given you’re a consultant of ours, and should thus be in touch with current events as well as obscure mystical ones, I expected you, of all people, to do your _research_.”

Strange looked half-offended and half-chagrinned.

“What happened to you anyway?”

“Tony Stark repeatedly threatened to tear out my soul.”

Fury’s eyebrows raised.

“And then he went ahead and removed it for a while just for fun, I think.”

“What’d you do to Loki?”

The corner of the magician’s mouth twitched. “I may have locked him inconveniently in the pocket dimension within the Soul gem with no easy way to retrieve him. There were significant complications.”

Fury nodded thoughtfully. “Sounds about right. I’ll expect a full report concerning everything you heard and saw concerning that little fire-and-ice incident in New York, including your capture of Loki. I’ll be comparing it to those of the Avengers. Also: anything and everything you know about this sorceress, Amora-”

“She should be taken care of,” Strange assured. “I took care of that, at the least.”

“Between that and all of the valuable life-lessons I’m sure you’ve learned, at least we got _some_ good out of it, then,” the old soldier deadpanned.

Strange’s frown only deepened.

 

~~

 

Loki’s body demanded rest, though his mind struggled fitfully against it whenever he found himself in the shallower regions of a particular REM cycle. His muscles twitched and he muttered words in languages that hadn’t been spoken on earth in centuries. There was too much to be done, so many irons in so many fires, but there was a warm whisper in his ear that kept soothing at him, murmuring things he could not quite catch in his dream state, but which settled his restlessness and somehow persuaded him to stop fighting, at least a little, and at least for now. After the first few hours, he ceased struggling at all; although he did occasionally nuzzle closer to the warm body wrapped up with his.

Between his body’s total and utter exhaustion, the draining of energy and magic he’d undergone, the mind-cracking stress he’d been under within the past twenty-four hours, and that utterly foreign sense of something akin to security and trust in something outside himself, Loki slept very deeply and dreamlessly, for quite possibly the first time since his initial fall from Asgard.

“Hey.”

The god of mischief did not move.

“Loki, can you hear me?” Tony was smirking a bit, and it was audible in his whisper, as he trailed his fingers down Loki’s spine. It was rare for the god of lies to look so vulnerable, to let himself be; centuries or habitual paranoia made him, more normally, a very light sleeper. “Hey, c’mon.”

Eyelids fluttering, Loki made a small noise in his throat. It was the sort of noise that indicated sleep still had a far greater hold on him than wakefulness, and he was inclined to keep it that way.

“I’ve got to go talk Clint down. JARVIS says he’s already starting to stalk around in the ceilings, more heavily armed than usual.” The engineer shook his head a little at the thought. “Insane little bastard.”

“A few more hours of sleep,” Loki mumbled quietly, slurring just enough to indicate he was still half-asleep, “and I’ll be able to have him tied up with his own bowstrings, dangling from the ceiling, with his hair and all of his clothing about his person made bright pink––in less than thirty seconds.”

Tony laughed, surprised and wicked. He would never publicly admit to it being a giggle, but it probably could’ve been classified as such. “I’d love to see it, but until then-” He pressed a kiss to Loki’s temple. “-I’d prefer you not to look like an archery target.”

“I don’t need magic to stop an arrow.” Loki opened one eye, his face half-buried in the pillow they’d wound up sharing. Given that he was curled up such that his chin rested against the top of Tony’s shoulder, he struggled a bit to focus on the engineer’s face. “Time is it?”

Habitually, Tony glanced ceiling-ward.

“It’s nearly six in the evening, sir,” JARVIS supplied.

Loki blinked as it occurred to him that he had no idea when he’d fallen asleep.

“That’s just over twelve hours for you.”

The god of mischief cursed and rolled so that his face hid in the pillow. If he happened to also half-sprawl across Tony’s body, that was just an added bonus. He muttered something half-incoherent, understandably muffled. Tony happened to catch the phrases “wasting time” and “shouldn’t still be this exhausted” in there somewhere.

“Hey. You ran yourself ragged, hon,” the engineer said softly, scritching at the nape of Loki’s neck, his fingers tangling a little in all that long black hair draped over it. “You’re not _that_ invulnerable.” He sounded a bit thoughtful.

The god of mischief turned his head, nuzzling a bit against Tony’s skin. “I’m aware,” he murmured, sounding a bit too sobered. He kissed Tony’s collarbone, throat, and just behind the corner of his jaw: soft and warm and close. “I know my limitations––mostly.”

“Sometimes I wonder,” Tony parried.

“Add it to the list of traits we have in common, then,” Loki counter-parried. He pulled back a bit, lifting himself up slightly, his weight on his forearms where they framed Tony’s ribcage. Looking down at the engineer’s face, Loki smirked a little. “Your hair is spectacular.”

“Yours looks like it’ll be fun to brush out. ‘Squirrel’s nest’ doesn’t cover it.”

Loki snorted. “You know, there is something more than rest that I may require in order to make a full recovery,” the god of mischief purred, moving his face closer to Tony’s, voice smoky and suggestive.

Tony’s lips parted and he hesitated for a moment, mostly out of distraction. “And what might that be?” he inquired, low and playful.

“Food,” Loki said simply, and pushed himself up and off the bed, stepping over to Tony’s closet quite casually.

“Fucking _tease_.”

“Oh yes.” Loki looked over his shoulder, coy and openly lascivious as he looked Tony over from head to foot. “But that’s not to suggest I won’t deliver, once I’m fed.”

The engineer perked up at that.

Loki’s smirk widened a little. Then he turned away again, flicking through items on hangars, looking for one of the suits he’d surreptitiously hidden in there some weeks ago. “After you’re done with your debriefing, too, of course.”

“You don’t play fair,” Tony muttered.

Hearing that his lover’s voice was closer now, not so far away as the bed, made Loki pause, just for a moment, before pulling out the sought-after suit. He was about to turn around with it, but felt hands on his waist, fingers ghosting over his skin: up his ribcage, forward, then down either side of his stomach and down, down to where hip met thigh. He made a small, appreciative sound.

“Neither do I, though, so that’s fine,” Tony whispered against his neck, just below his ear, making a shiver roll down Loki’s spine. Then the engineer pulled away entirely, slipping past the stock-still god of mischief to pull a pair of boxes and a pair of jeans from the nearby dresser.

Loki took a slow, deep breath and half-smiled: a little vengeful, a little self-deprecating, but above all full of mischief. “We shall see,” he said softly, and laid out his suit on the dresser before strolling into the shower.

Tony considered joining him, not least because he still smelled a bit like smoke, ozone, and sweat from the previous night, but restrained himself for the nonce. He instead pulled on a shirt and proceeded to charm Natasha into lending him a hairbrush that would be capable of handling Loki’s hair without the aid of magic.

 

~~

 

By the time Tony finished his own shower and put on a clean pair of pants, Loki had finished with the hairbrush, but seemed to have taken a slightly extreme approach to some of the tangles. “Uhm,” Tony said, surprised staring at the god of mischief sweeping the last traces of hair-trimmings from the back of his neck. “Decided for a change, I see?”

“It was getting annoying, even with magic to keep it in check now and again,” Loki murmured. He apprised his own reflection with an unreadable expression. His hair was now just a few inches longer than it had been before his fall from Asgard, but rather than lying perfectly smooth as it had back then, it retained the mane-like shape that it seemed to have developed once he let it grown so long. It still had that wisp-effect, somewhere between feather-like spikiness and natural waviness in the back; seeing Loki’s hair behave that way without factoring in magic caused Tony some confusion. After a few moments’ staring, Loki nodded in approval and turned to face Tony with a half-smile.

“It suits you, but most things do,” the engineer said, stepping up to run his hands through it: smooth, and soft, with just a hint of the prickliness of fresh-cut hair at the ends. Tony was pleased to note that he could still more than adequately tangle his fingers in it and almost lose track of them entirely. “I like it.”

Loki leaned his head down to rest his forehead on Tony’s. “So... food?”

“Let’s get you a shirt, first.”

“I have one.”

“You have a formal shirt.” Tony tugged him out of the bathroom, and started pulling open dresser drawers. After a few seconds, he emerged with a black-and-grey sweater, and a thin white t-shirt. “Try these.”

The god rolled his eyes, but obeyed. The t-shirt fit well, and the sweater over it fit his shoulders and chest loosely, but didn’t appear too short for him. He pushed the sleeves up to his elbows, though, given they _were_ a bit too short for his long limbs. “Satisfactorily casual for you?”

Tony smirked at him. “Yeah. Want to go out for something?”

The god of mischief’s eyebrows raised. “I thought you had to have words with the archer in the ceiling.”

“He can wait a bit, at least; if I face him without food, we might kill each other, now I’ve thought about it. C’mon, I know a place near here I haven’t tried yet. They do these Vietnamese sandwiches that smell fantastic, though, among other things.”

Loki considered for a moment, then nodded with a small smile. “They serve large portions, I presume?”

Tony recalled the truly enormous bowls of Phở he’d noticed them serving the last time he walked past the place, and nodded. “Yeah. You like beef soup fine?”

“I do.”

“Then you’ll like this,” Tony assured.

 

~~

 

A good deal of teasing and a short walk later, and they successfully found the new little Vietnamese restaurant around the corner. Loki wasn’t kidding about a need for food, though, clearly. As soon as he walked in and smelled the food, Tony saw a ravenous expression fleetingly cross Loki’s expression before the god of mischief could quite prevent it. Tony asked politely for an out-of-the-way table, and managed to keep his face at least half-hidden from most of the restaurant’s other customers along the way. The last thing he needed right now was a dozen cellphone cameras pointed at him. He sat with his back to the rest of the room.

Inevitably, the waitstaff wasn’t sure what to make of them.

“You know how large the ‘large’ bowl of Phở _is_ , yes?” The waitress asked delicately, looking between the two of them.

Loki glanced across the restaurant, where at least one such enormous bowl was being shared by two people. “Yes.” He offered a reassuring smile. “I have something of an idea.”

“And you’re sure the two of you want three of them?”

“To start,” Tony said, “yeah.” He’d started to adjust to having an appetite that nearly rivaled Thor’s at times, particularly after a bit of Avengers work, and was equally impatient for the arrival of their food by that point. He picked at the plate of basil, peppers and bean-sprouts, explaining the basic concept of Phở to Loki, who had apparently already mastered chopsticks at some point before then, to judge by how deftly he used them to snag a slice of jalepeño from the plate.

“What’s this?”

“Hot pepper. Uh... how spicy is Asgardian cuisine, actually?”

“It can be reasonably spicy, but that tends to vary with the season,” Loki mused. “We don’t have any vegetables of quite this sort, though: peppers, that is.”

“You’re familiar with them?”

“I’ve done some botanical surveys here. One never knows what might be useful in a potion of one sort or another, though most plants in Midgard are not very potent, magically speaking.” He popped the pepper into his mouth and took on a thoughtful expression as he chewed.

Tony’s eyebrows raised. “The heat doesn’t bother you?”

Loki swallowed. “There are some southern lands in Alfheim with similar fondness for food that bites back, particularly with heat. I developed a taste for it, after living there for a year or two. They have a truly astonishing library there, and I was still very much the scholar at the time.”

“When was that?”

With a shrug, Loki mused, “Oh, about 800 years ago, I think.”

The engineer snorted, shaking his head. “No idea how you keep track of that much memory.”

“Very carefully.” Loki smiled a little. His smile widened still further when their Phở arrived. Ignoring the slightly odd looks from fellow restaurant-goers, they started to tuck in. Loki sampled a bit of the broth thoughtfully, and began adding basil, as well as just over half the jalepeños, which Tony allowed mostly because he found it amusing that a frost giant liked spicy food.

“I did have a question, a bit, about some of the realms. Oh, also, you may like this.” He handed over the bottle of sriracha sauce after adding a fair amount to his own bowl.

Loki sampled a bit on one fingertip. “I do indeed. What question?”

“Well, I got the impression Jotunheim is actually its own planet, and from what you’ve mentioned, I think Alfheim is, too. Most of the places seem to be, except maybe Helheim, and, well, Asgard. It’s not connected to any planet, though it has a respectable amount of landmass, but it’s not got the big-round-ball-orbiting-a-sun thing going for it. What’s up with that?”

Quickly adapting to the Vietnamese soup spoon, the god of chaos was already making impressive progress, without looking half so ridiculous as his brother tended to look at some mealtimes, despite his pace. He did pause to consider Tony’s question, and also chew a bit. Swallowing, he said, “It’s a long story, actually, and you may not believe half of it.” A line appeared between his eyebrows. “I’m not even sure I do, some days.”

“We have a bit of time,” Tony prompted.

“We will once I finish this,” Loki said, and began twisting the long noodles around his chopsticks again, aided by the spoon.

“Point taken.”

Loki took less than twenty minutes to finish both of the bowls he’d ordered, and admitted he was fond of the stuff. He didn’t smash any dishware, thankfully, though he did order a couple bowls of Bún. Tony went with a rice plate. The waitstaff continued to give them concerned looks, but didn’t seem inclined to argue.

While they waited, Loki began, “Well, to start, Asgardians started out with a planet to call home. It was marginally earth-like, if the literature is to be believed: temperate enough to easily support life, lush forest, jagged coastlines, et cetera; although they apparently had no deserts.” He shrugged. “There are still some old records, and very old stories, about the place. The only reason Asgard itself survived, while the rest of the planet did not, seems to be out of a combination of extreme selfishness, and lack of any more tasteful options.”

“What happened to the planet?”

Loki made a face. “That’s where it gets a bit odd. If I hadn’t seen them a few times over the millennia, most notably one of their visits here in Midgard, I would be disinclined to believe that they exist.” He cleared his throat. “There are beings in the universe known as Celestials. They are... difficult to explain. Also: enormous.”

“How enormous?”

“I think their average height is just under half a mile.”

Tony blinked. “I see.”

“Large, armored, not terribly talkative, and older than any of the races you or I are ever likely to meet in this part of the universe,” Loki said, his voice turning low and thoughtful. “Mostly because the Celestials are responsible for most of the races in the nine realms and this galaxy in general.”

“Uhm. What?”

“I should probably mention why various gods have been so intent on watching the earth, especially insofar as visiting primitive peoples some thousands of years ago.” Loki again smiled at the waitress as she delivered the next round of food. He then snatched the sriracha before Tony could.

“You’ll want to use the fish sauce, too: the stuff with the carrots in it, there.”

Loki picked it up, blinked a bit at the smell, then poured about half of it over his noodles. “Earth, you see, is actually rather mind-bogglingly unique, in a way.”

“How is that?” Tony raised an eyebrow at him.

“ _Homo sapiens sapiens_. You developed as you are, humanoid and thus resembling us, the gods, and the Celestials, and numerous other races. Your evolution wasn’t meddled with by the Celestials until roughly four thousand years ago––unlike most other advanced races in the nine realms, or the places inhabited by other pantheons.”

“Wait... _other_ pantheons?”

“There are a few. Usually the ones you all associate with ‘sky-gods’ such as Odin, Zeus, and others. We have been the most actively engaged with earth, in our ways, since... oh, I think since about the first time Rome went to war against Carthage and actually won. It’s always strange to hear Zeus accuse father of being young and overly sympathetic.”

Tony snorted, amused despite his slowly increasing confusion. “Really?”

“Yes. It’s because... well.” He cleared his throat. “It comes down to what we communities of ‘sky-gods’ actually are. We’re the survivors of the sort of cataclysmic event that usually destroys everything around it––the hatching of a Celestial.” He began to look uneasy. “I never like the implications all of this. It always brings a sense of existential futility to any conversation.”

“What implications?”

Loki set down his chopsticks and steepled his hands, considering his words very carefully. “Planets capable of sustaining life, in our universe, are rare. They are tiny oases with gentle enough conditions to support living organisms, which makes them the ideal place for Celestials to keep their offspring: deep within the planet, maturing over billions of years. Celestials initially began creating other advanced races to augment a phenomenon that already takes place on planets they use for this purpose: the creation of certain types of heroes. _Super_ -heros, is the earth version of it.” He took a sip of water. “They have a drive to protect the planet against hostile outside forces––a soul-deep impulse to protect. This is due to slow, inexorable influence from the brain-waves of the developing Celestial within a planet: it hits some individuals more than others, usually those with access to great power. And it is a futile thing.”

“Futile?”

“The planet which my––Odin and Thor’s race came from was destroyed when the Celestial within it hatched. The last of their heroes pulled together enough land, resources, power and people to create Asgard as it is now: a twilight world, existing in a place between infinite cold, and overwhelming fire.”

Tony soaked that up for a long few moments, as Loki began eating again. “So... earth?”

“Will eventually hatch,” Loki said softly. “There is no way to prevent it. Even if there were, there would be a still more severe reckoning to face.”

“The parents, you mean?”

“Yes, quite.”

“How long have we got, do you think?”

Loki shrugged. “This planet is what, four, four and a half billion years old? If Zeus is to be believed, the average age a planet reaches before that hatching takes place is at least eight billion. Most races, Aesir and other gods included, are luck to last even half that long without self-destructing.”

Tony couldn’t help but laugh at that, just a little. “Well, that’s something humanity has some talent for, admittedly.” He shook his head. “I am not nearly drunk enough to follow any of those trains of thought much further.”

Loki nodded then paused, looking like he’d suddenly gotten an idea. “Hmm.”

“What is it?”

“Rocks,” he muttered, staring at the ceiling for a moment. “And the ages thereof.”

“Look, I tried to explain the Rock of Ages thing-”

“Not that.” Loki’s eyes narrowed. “Just an idea. A brilliant idea, really.” He looked at Tony with wide, innocent eyes and raised eyebrows. “Now, if everything on a certain cold, distant planet happens to be either dead, or controlled by Mistress Death’s would-be lover, is destroying the planet still a bad thing? My judgement on these matters, as we all know...”

Tony held up a hand, “Hey, hey, wait, what now?”

“Not this planet. Not _even_ in the nine realms.”

“What is with you and destroying planets?” Tony muttered.

“It’s efficient.”

Tony tried to keep a straight face to match Loki’s, as he’d been doing well so far, but at that, he finally lost it and resorted to keeping the volume of his half-hysterical half-amazed laughter at publicly appropriate levels.

Loki smiled a little, eyes downcast. “I’m only a little serious, really. The threat of it would be more effective than the actual thing––and in any case I haven’t got the Time gem.” He shrugged.

“Admittedly, sounds like your sort of plan: hatch a Celestial, destroy everything near it in one fell swoop.”

“Is that bad?”

“It’s a bit extreme,” Tony said lightly. “In this case, though, a bit more merited than the first time you decided destroying a planet sounded like a great idea. It just seems the sort of thing no one, except the Celestial, would get out of in one piece.”

“Well. Space gem.”

The engineer considered for a long moment. “Okay, I can see that. Maybe. But only as an absolute last resort. Try at least three alternative plans first.”

“Conceded.”

“You plan on letting me in on any of those plans?”

Loki looked up from the last bits of noodles and lettuce in his bowl. For just a moment, it was very nearly a deer-in-the-headlights look, before his composure returned. “I would have to begin by telling you who I met whilst in that gem, and that is a conversation best accompanied by a great deal of alcohol.”

“Wait. You met someone in there?”

“Alcohol,” Loki insisted. “Some of _mine_.”

Tony’s eyebrows raised. Loki didn’t drink much, but recalling how potent the drinks were in Asgard, the god of mischief’s insistence was telling. “That bad?”

“Possibly.” He frowned a little, recalling Mistress Death’s words. They sounded wrong somehow. The nature of Death’s appearance was arbitrary, dependent upon who happened to be looking, usually; how could such a being be _subject to the form_ in which it might manifest? Death had been partial to certain people for years; some people wrote songs about the assassins, the tyrants, and others to whom she appeared with unusual frequency. But love? Love required something a bit more than bones and cosmic power. It itched at him.

Tony snorted at him. “Ground control to the god of chaos.”

Loki looked a bit sheepish.

“Fed up enough?”

The god of mischief nodded. “Yes, I believe so.”

Tony pulled out a few bills, frowning at the rather high denominations, then shrugged and left what amounted to a fifty-percent tip. “Let’s go, then, shall we?”

 

~~

 

Upon arrival back at the tower, they were met in the elevator by Clint, who seemed to be trying to stab them with just his stare, and Natasha, who appeared perfectly serene in comparison.

“I was about to track you down,” Clint muttered.

“JARVIS was kind enough to mention you weren’t in danger, and were just around the corner,” Natasha added. “Also, Bruce is back, and he’s been asking about the broken windows in the general region of your lab.”

Exchanging glances, the pair stepped in. The elevator started to rise immediately. “So he was going after me to make a scene,” Tony mused, “but what about you?” He raised an eyebrow at Natasha.

“I planned to check the place out to see if I might want to pick up lunch there tomorrow, and I didn’t want to miss the show,” she said simply. She then looked Loki up and down. “You’re looking... casual. Also, the dark circles under your eyes aren’t usually a great sign. What happened after you two vanished last night?”

Loki shrugged. “Oh, mostly I just got hurled into a pocket-universe not intended to support physical as well and metaphysical residents by a Midgardian mage who apparently garnered enough respect from the far-ranging mystic community at large to be entrusted with numerous artifacts of great power.”

“He’s also S.H.I.E.L.D.’s occult consultant,” Tony said.

Natasha’s eyebrows raised. “ _Strange_ attacked you?”

“It’s the occupational hazard of a professional liar and trickster: some people suspect you of planning wrongdoing even before you get to do anything really _fun_ ,” Loki sighed, folding his arms over his chest. “You’ve met the man, then?”

“We’ve worked with him once,” Clint said.

“I’ve worked with him twice.”

Clint raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Later,” she muttered.

The archer snorted, but didn’t press her further.

“So you were caught?” Natasha asked Loki, who nodded. She turned her stare on Tony. “And you took over from there, I presume.”

“I’ve got magic-resistant armor, so yeah. I gave him a bad case of bruised pride and then some less intangible bruises. Brought him back to the lab to work out all the logistics of getting Loki back out. I succeeded, as you can see. Then we kicked his ass out the door.”

“Did he survive?” Clint inquired.

“So far,” Loki said. “He owes me, however. He owes me a _great deal_.”

Clint and Natasha seemed to realize the full, potentially horrible ways that could go, and nodded in unison. “Sound investment, I suppose,” Natasha murmured.

The elevator dinged as they reached the shared/public Avengers floor.

“Bruce still wants a run-down, and Steve will be here in an hour,” Clint said.

Tony winced. “Ah, shit.”

Loki rested a hand on his lower back and murmured in his ear, “Go on. I need a bit more sleep yet.”

“Not too much, hopefully,” Tony replied, very quiet. “I’ve got plans for you.”

“Cancel them. I have better ones,” Loki countered, with just enough gravel edge to his voice to send a shiver down the engineer’s spine.

“We’ll see,” Tony said, smirking as the doors opened.

“Come on, Stark, or I’m going to start taking pot-shots at your hotrods,” Clint said as he stepped out.

Tony flipped him off and caught Loki’s mouth in a soft, not-quite-chaste kiss, before stepping back. “Sleep well.”

“Enjoy making the archer miserable.”

“You know me so well.” He stepped out. The doors closed.

“To the penthouse, Mr. Lie-smith?” JARVIS inquired.

“Yes, thank you. Also, please look up the phone number of Professor Charles Xavier. You may need to dig in some of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s files to find his secure line.”

“Certainly, sir.” By the time Loki reached the penthouse and the elevator doors opened, JARVIS announced he had found the number in one of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s databases, as suggested.

“Good.” Loki found one of the ubiquitous handheld tablets that seemed to be located randomly throughout the penthouse on every other horizontal surface. “Patch me through, then, please.”

JARVIS obliged.

Loki listened to the first few rings, then smiled when the line picked up.

“ _Hello, Charles Xavier speaking. Who is this?_ ”

“Hello, Professor,” Loki greeted. “This is Loki Lie-smith. We met once before, as I recall.”

A pause. “ _After a fashion, yes. May I ask why you’ve called?_ ”

“In part because my magic is currently quite drained for the moment, but mostly I would like to ask for your help with a few small matters.” He rested a hand on the side of his head, recalling the ghost-pang of rending pain as the anchor ripped out with enough force for the agony of it to follow from the astral and metaphysical straight on into the physical.

“ _For what purpose?_ ”

“Same as before, but time has grown a bit shorter.” He hesitated. “The anchor was forcibly removed, recently. Not by me, nor by the one who inflicted it. I was hurled into a sort of pocket dimension and it got torn off in the process.”

“ _Ah_ ,” Xavier responded, sounding thoughtful. “ _What help would you ask of me?_ ”

“Some minor repairs... and one other, more complex project. I recommend you strengthen your own defenses before even approaching it, as there is a reason I am quite as mad as I am, of recent, and not all of it was directly my own doing.” His eyes snapped shut against images of _things_ no man’s eyes, be he mortal or immortal, should ever see, let alone stare into for any extensive period of time. Not that he’d had much choice, at the time: his eyes, when that happened, had refused to close. “I have need to design a sort of... unique container for some dangerous things residing in my mind.”

Xavier made another low, thoughtful sound. “ _I will consider it, and give you my answer before tomorrow night._ ”

“Thank you, Professor. You’re a very good man,” Loki said.

“ _And you are the god of lies_.”

“I would not be an efficient trickster if I did not tell the truth just often enough for people to be willing to believe me, when I might need them to.” He smiled. “Besides, the only thing better than a lie is a truth that someone doubts, but longs to be reassured of. It is true nevertheless.”

“ _Point taken. Good evening, Mr. Lie-smith._ ”

“And to you, Professor Xavier.”

_Click._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter, sorry, but the next instalment will be considerably lengthier and more complicated.
> 
> Also, if you're wondering, my particular interpretation of Marvel's Celestials came about because of a few things my roommate mentioned that infected my brain, most of which are from a limited series Marvel AU.
> 
> The thing is, I didn't know until I was doing a bit of confirmation research (after writing Loki's version here) that I'd just taken the Marvel-616 Celestials and put their backstory in a blender with the version of the Celestials in the alternate universe limited series _Earth X_. So... not really canon, but I like it too much to care.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which family is always embarrassing, Loki has problems other than just a few repressed memories leftover from the fall, and wheels are set in motion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> " _The liar take a lot less time_.”
> 
>  
> 
> \-- Arctic Monkeys, “Dance Little Liar”

The two full moons over Helheim, on rare and clear nights like this, could be bright as a cloudy midday in Jotunheim. The land belonging to Hel herself was technically part of Nifleheim, but it is a place out of joint with the rest of the place: it had deep connections to other places, other times, and tendrils that reached into even the furthest-flung corners of the nine realms. Helheim had always been a world unto itself, a domain of death and the dead, for many gates and paths there led into Death’s domain. Many, though scarcely all, of the souls of those who died in the nine realms walked those paths to their rest. Other worlds  in Yggdrasil had gateways to those paths, or others like them leading to the same final destination: secret doors in the darkest woods of Alfheim, a mythic golden hall in Asgard out of the reach of the living there, and others.

There were dozens of gateways, doors, and hidden passageways on earth for the incredibly numerous souls there: ever more populous, providing a constant and impressive procession of the dead, especially as viewed by eyes of nearly-immortal beings who had lived for millennia. Many of earth’s portals led indirectly to Death’s domain, through other lands: the domains of Mephisto, Hades, Anubis, Ereshkigal, and Hel herself. Death himself, or herself, is beyond those gods who collect the dead, and ultimately owns each and every last departed soul, though some more than others she might take her time to collect. After journeying through the realms of old and new, sometimes being weighed and measured and judged, the gods and goddesses of deathly realms ultimately knew that they had no say in where Death might take those souls. Often, they would never know, unless they choose to summon individuals from their rest and ask directly; although their answers tended to be disconcertingly inconsistent, and always impressively vague.

Their purpose was to collect the souls, for Death only very rarely did so personally, except for rare and particularly extraordinary persons. Other collectors included angelic creatures, golden and brilliant, and other far more wicked things.

Hel watched over the night’s procession with protective, sympathetic eyes. When the wind was with them, they could hear her voice singing them softly to their rest: sad and mournful, echoing around them. This particular path passed through an old river bed, long since frozen over, conquered by shallow, rippling dunes of snow that provided surprisingly easy footing. Walls of stone rose high on either side, as well as ahead, and behind. Shadows were deep, but the moonlight more than made up for them.

“Nights like this,” said a low, melodic and lovely voice over Hel’s shoulder, “I think this place more beautiful than the others like it: a frozen river styx of a sort, the ice and snow making it into a desert.” The voice’s owner was fine-featured, with a straight aquiline nose and high, clear brow of a sort common in classical Greek sculptures. Her eyes were large, slanting up slightly at the outer corners, and had irises of a purple so dark they looked black until the moonlight caught them at just the right angle. Her form, all impossible smooth curves, was wrapped in fine grey cloth. Her hair was short: black curls blown back from her brow by the wind. If the cold bothered her, bare-armed and bare-legged as she was, then she did not show it, and her skin remained smooth, unprickled by goosebumps.

Voice trailing off at the end of her song, Hel looked up and smiled at the other goddess. “Hecate.” Hel rose to her feet slowly. She was a little taller than her companion, and narrower of build. Her hands settled on either side of Hecate’s face and pulled her briefly into a soft, gentle kiss. When she pulled away, they were both smiling wide and giggling a little at each other’s smiles. “How have you been?”

“I have missed you.” Hecate wrapped her arms about Hel’s waist, pulling her closer. “I do so dislike family gatherings. I think they mean to make them last longer than even Asgardian celebrations: days of dancing nymphs, ambrosia, and dodging either satyrs or drunken gods determined to act like them.”

Hel laughed softly. “It was not only that which kept you away; I know you far better than that.”

Hecate sighed a little, pressing her brow against Hel’s collarbone, which was at the perfect height for her to do so. “Duties.”

“Duties.” Hel looked over her shoulder toward the waning procession of the dead: the last party who would walk this path before dawn. “We both have them, yes.”

“Yes.” Hecate lifted her head again, smiling faintly, and a little sadly. “It would help considerably if matters would calm a little. There is something from outside the realms I wander––your nine, and those of the other pantheons––which is scratching at old, closed doors and gateways, seeking to get in. I have repaired the damage, and heard what is on the other side of those scratchings. I began to sense that there was a storm coming.” She tucked Hel’s hair behind her ear, catching the other goddess’ attention again. “It has whispered familiar names, at times: particularly your father’s.”

Hel nodded thoughtfully. “I wish I could say I was surprised, but I am not. He has been preparing as though for a war, though I do not think that he wishes to have it here in the nine realms, if he can help it.”

“Let us hope it can be helped. I’m rather fond of your father, in some ways.” Hecate smiled. “Not least because he so loves you.”

Hel snorted. “You are often oddly fond of people who threaten your life.”

“Only when they’re good at it, ultimately unsuccessful, and put on a good show,” Hecate corrected, amused. “And Loki Odinson can put on one damn fine show.”

At that, Hel could only chuckle. “This much is true.”

“And I can hardly dislike him for threatening to kill me if I ever break your heart,” the Greek goddess added, lifting one of Hel’s hands to gently kiss the back of it. Over the span of nearly a century they had been lovers several times but only fleetingly, and not exclusively. When their connection had changed and deepened, it had surprised them both, terrified them even, but Hecate had long since begun to consider their relationship invaluable. “Should I ever do so, I feel I might well deserve it.”

“Hush,” Hel chided, and with a final glance at the last soul departing into the dark gateway below, she smiled down at her lover. “Let us go home.” She hesitated only a moment. “I would ask a favor of you.”

“Yes?”

“I may visit my grandmother soon. It has been––a very long time, as you may recall.” She touched Hecate’s face again, long fingers trailing long her jawline. “Will you go with me?”

Hecate’s eyebrows raised. “Of course,” she said softly, though her look was questioning.

Hel only shook her head, eyes downcast. “I want to show my family that I am happy here, as I am. I am happiest with you close at hand, and––while I have met many of your kin, I have hardly returned that favor.”

“My kin are merely raucous,” Hecate replied. “There are no damaged bridges there. Are you certain-”

“I am,” Hel said firmly. “And I would speak with them, particularly my grandfather, now knowing what I do.”

“I would hear some of that, perhaps,” Hecate mused, her brow furrowed. “It seems unfair for Odin to have kept that knowledge not only from Loki, but from you.” Her fingers lovingly traced the markings along Hel’s dark cheekbone.

“It would––I would find much of it easier with you at my side.”

“Then I will be there.” The slighter goddess leaned up to press a kiss to Hel’s lips, slower and more evocative this time. “But for now, let us go home.”

“Indeed,” Hel murmured, and curled her power around them both, until they vanished, leaving only a fleeting cloud of dark purple smoke in her wake.

 

~~

 

The formation, over time and with deliberation, of small habits goes a very long way in learning to navigate places such as dreams, or the astral plane. The habit of questioning the world around oneself is the first step, and the one most often repeated. Doubt is the constant companion of any true master of magic.

 _Is this a dream?_ he asked himself.

The tombs around him had no answer: cold and silent, the final resting places of heroes and villains from throughout the nine realms. _Helheim._ Loki exhaled, and his breath steamed in the bitter cold. His hands were pale. _Aha._ He smiled faintly at the incongruity of the cold around him, his own nature, and what his eyes told him. _A dream, yes. Very good._ He strolled further into the maze of monuments, tombs, and gravestones.

Loki felt the air around him grow ominously still, despite the whisper of wind still audible: whistling through narrow gaps between the icy, cyclopean blocks of stone which surrounded the graveyard. The foreign sensation of a _cold_ chill down his spine made him raise an eyebrow, and brought a humorless smile to his lips. “I was hoping you might join me,” he said quietly, and turned to meet the eye of the figure materializing from the shadows. “I have questions.”

Mistress Death stepped closer, until she was just out of arm’s reach: all bone, wrapped in a lady’s fine robes. She said nothing, but smiled a little and gestured, encouraging him to continue. Unspoken was, _I will stop you if you speak wrongly, or if you stray too far_.

The god of mischief considered. “What is it like, for you, watching the rest of us drift by, and you take shapes like ours whenever we look on you?” he murmured. “I’ve given it a good deal of thought.” He folded his arms across his chest and leaned back against the broken column of a tomb possibly older than the nine realms themselves. This was Death’s place, and had existed elsewhere long before coming to rest here. “I think it must be oddly serene, most of the time, but that gets interrupted, doesn’t it?”

Mistress Death stepped closer, cloaked in a woman’s skin again: flawless and lovely. She tapped a finger against the column and shot him a warning look.

A bit sheepishly, Loki ceased to lean on it. He knew she was warning him to show respect for the dead, and thus by proxy Death herself. “You want to overcome some of his madness: the part which leads him to seek tools which warp, and thus endanger, reality itself. You’re a part of that fabric, same as all of us. That much is obvious, and your reasoning for wanting to shake him free of that sort of reasoning is clear enough; however, you said _subject to the form in which you manifest_. That was strange, to me. All of this is strange. You are acting like us: like a creature with a mind, and a heart, and very nearly the carnal impulses to go along with both.”

She shot him a look: cold and flat and dangerous.

“Why bring me into this? I thought it over. You should be able to shake him free yourself: with your words, or with the powers you possess. That makes me wonder if you have tried and failed.”

Her expression became a twisted, unpleasant smile. Then the winds changed, the silvery light from overhead dimmed as clouds momentarily blanketed the face of the moon. Mistress Death was again all bones and cloth. She nodded.

“You did?”

She nodded again.

“Not with words?”

She stepped closer to him, reached for his face with fingers of bone.

Loki swallowed tightly, but closed his eyes, willing himself not to flinch.

The moonlight returned, and just before her fingertips grazed his cheek, they regained flesh again. With her touch came first images: _Thanos kneeling with his head bowed as hands of bone came to rest on his temples_ , _Mistress Death pulling back the curtains of his shuttered mind as he let her in_. Then sensation: _a long silence shattered by a heart-wrenching cry, pleasant coldness and the peace of the grave interrupted by abrupt conflagration, the feeling of a heartbeat––strangely foreign and infinitely disturbing––not her own, but within her awareness._

Then the god of mischief’s eyes snapped open. She was still touching him, and now he found that all the more uncomfortable, given what he had just been shown. “You stepped into his head. You possessed him. I hadn’t considered _those_ old stories of your visits into mortal flesh to be so true as all that.”

“ _Without a grain of truth, stories so old rarely survive––especially so many of them_ ,” she replied, her voice a faint and whispery echo. The graveyard around them was suddenly silent as a library before dawn. The winds persisted, but seemed to make no sound, though they stirred up icy fog and snow flurries around their feet.

Loki stared hard at her. “You felt his love. It became yours.”

She nodded.

“Not only his love––but a little of his madness.”

She smiled, not altogether kindly.

“Why me?” Loki inquired. “Odin is a gallows-god and far more qualified, and I know there are others. You never even speak to your love, but you speak to me–– _why?_ ”

Mistress Death raised her other hand to his face too.

He did flinch this time, first at her touch, then in acute discomfort as she dragged him down into _her_ dream–Death’s dream. The mere thought of it sent bursts of cold horror down his spine, but he could not even begin to struggle against it.

He saw himself, in his own past, looking younger than should be possible given that only a few years had passed since then, out of thousands he had lived through before. He was weaving ice around the mechanisms of the rainbow bridge as the bi-frost unleashed its full power upon an unsuspecting world of ice and Jotuns. Then the scene flickered away.

For the first time, he was shown the results, as seen from a distance, perhaps from the surface of one of Jotunheim’s moons: the blinding flash of color and light, the shockwaves of cracking stone––an entire continent visibly groaning in distress, and others around it beginning to grow agitated. Loki felt a coil of visceral loathing and horror in his gut despite all efforts to harden himself against it. Suddenly, destroying a planet seemed far more difficult to shrug off than it had been mere minutes before. Even then, he also felt a strange urge to laugh hysterically, and he felt _alive_ , and it was a sensation terrible and terrified to such a degree that it broke through into something else: a thrill like no other, albeit one of unmitigated horror. It lasted until the light intensified further, and the cracks deepened and the god of mischief felt the loathing, the hate, and something disconcertingly like clawing guilt creeping back in and shredding at him from within. _Not a good idea_ , he thought, desperately, and gasped in relief when the light cut out, and the planet itself remained otherwise intact, though oceans began to wash into the gap where one-third of a sizable continent had been shattered and brought lower than the sea.

For the first time, Loki wondered how many he had killed with the bi-frost, in Jotunheim. He resolved to ask Hel.

The scene changed, and he saw Mistress Death standing on a small cliff just over the edge of Asgard, far below the remains of the shattered rainbow bridge. She was watching Loki’s past self fall––fall into the void of his own making: a rip in space and time meant to bring death forever to an entire world, and he had fallen into it. Seeping in at the edges, feeling not too different from Mistress Death’s hold on his mind, he felt the whispering, chittering susurrus of the monsters from the void coming back to him, all but crooning as Death watched him fall into their places, and through them. Loki screamed.

Then she let go, and her mind swept back the horrors as though they were nothing: soothing them back as though her touch were lullaby to them: the living traces of those unspeakable things which even now lurked in his mind like worms in an apple.

Loki felt himself shaking. “You... I... what have I-” He covered his face with his hands and lowered them as the shaking became one prolonged shudder. “Oh, no wonder you _like me_. No small wonder that I can hear you; you’re a lover of assassins and destroyers of worlds in all the tales. Your name is sung by those monsters in the void, and I had to _listen to their hymns._ They were and _are_ yours!” He took a deep breath, staring at her with wide eyes. Then something of himself returned: not composure, but the snarling edge of pride and savage, selfish ego that kept all of the jagged pieces of him clinging together even in the face of death, and of chaotic madness: self-serving, cracked and ferocious. “What is it you might want of me, I wonder––what could I _offer_ you, to _free_ me of this?” He waved a hand, pulling the rest of his more polished veneer of civility back together with a herculean effort: _that_ was composure, and his greatest lie of all, for it was one that he more often than not believed himself. “Not only my debt to you, but the traces of those _songs_ of you, and of those who would be yours? It’s not merely the memories of them–– _those_ I could stand, albeit uncomfortably––it’s their voices, and the tendrils of thought no man or god was _meant_ to carry that they wove in my _head_ : more than memory, for memory is not so _prehensile_ and inconsiderate.”

She raised her eyebrows at him.

“You.” He pointed at her, eyes narrowing. “ _You_ just swept them back even though they reside in _my_ head, and should be beyond your control, especially given they are so often beyond mine. Those tendrils are _of_ you, corruptions of you perhaps, but you have threads in common with them nevertheless and they obey you.”

“ _They are life-forms of very different sorts than any you know––and they do court chaos and death, for they feed upon it,_ ” she said. “ _I am to them as sunlight and fresh air might be to you._ ”

“They _worship_ that chaos, and you,” Loki insisted. Then his voice softened, reigning in the edge of hate in his voice. “Please. What must I do?”

“ _At this raised price?_ ” Mistress Death mused, looking him hard in the eye. “ _Break him, as agreed. Then bring to me all that which he has promised me: himself, and the kingdom he has built for me, in my name._ ”

Loki felt pins-and-needles of fear prickling under his skin. “Bring to you?”

“ _Death conquers,_ ” she said, low and soft as fresh frost on the petals of flowers: icy bouquets left before the graves of the dead.

“You want me... to destroy all of it?” Loki asked, voice shaking with intermixed dread and hysterical mirth.

“ _If you would have me take those horrors from you, I would have you provide new ones for me instead, God of lies,_ ” she said.

Loki recalled that for all her apparent loveliness, this really was _Death_ he was managing to converse with. “So I see.”

She nodded, apparently satisfied, and stood up on tip-toe to kiss his cheek.

On contact, he felt his heart stop in his chest, making everything around him that much more deathly silent, and felt her lips curve into a sweet, sweet smile against his skin. He could feel the words as she silently mouthed, _not yet_.

Then she was gone and his heart spasmed back into motion: frenetic and painful

 

~~

 

And he woke up.

Loki snapped upright with a gasp, cold sweat prickling across his still-crawling skin, one hand over his heart, feeling it stutter twice, then start beating at a mad and terrified, but blessedly steady pace. His whole body shook and he found himself pulling his legs up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them tight as he tried to slow his ragged, uneven breathing and the frantic galloping-pace of his heartbeat. He tucked his nose between his knees as he hadn’t done since he was a child, and held onto his own forearms tightly until at last most of the tremors subsided.

Just over an hour’s rest alone, and enough dread to last him for a full week. _At least I’m efficient,_ he thought, self-deprecation lacing the words even in his own head. Feeling weary and shaken and like half of the jokes in this game had well and truly ceased to be funny, the god of lies uncurled from around himself and rubbed his eyes, ignoring any abnormal moisture in that region that might have left traces of saline on his skin. He left the bed and went into the shower to rinse away the sweat and some of the lingering self-loathing.

He tried not to dwell on the sight of Jotunheim lit up and cracking under the force of the bi-frost. He tried not to dwell on the idea that he had inadvertently wrapped himself up in all that usually lured Death to her particular _favorites_ with all of those events leading up to his fall, and the fall itself.

Though, as he considered that thought, it began to lose some of its unease, instead bringing him ideas. Interesting ideas. He would simply need–––well, he would need _Time_. Or a reasonable... facsimile.

 _Oh_ , he thought, and began to laugh: breathless and horrified, but also buzzed with his own brilliance and anticipation. He also laughed at himself, of all people, for not thinking of it sooner. He stepped out of the shower, dried, and pulled on a pair of pajama pants. “JARVIS?”

“Yes, Mr. Lie-smith?”

“Call my brother, please. Just put him on speaker,” Loki said, as he begun towel-drying his hair, grinning like a maniac all the while.

 

~~

 

“You’re really taking this... this Thanos threat really seriously, then?” Steve asked.

“Sometimes I think we should change your name to Captain Obvious,” Tony countered. “Of course I am. So are S.H.I.E.L.D.’s occult consultant and a few of the gods in Asgard who happen to all sort of _run_ the place. I think it’s worth taking a little bit seriously.”

“Gods, wizards, and S.H.I.E.L.D., oh my,” Bruce sighed, smiling crookedly. “I should put myself on the list, too. With all that paranoia in one place, I’ll feel right at home.”

“Thank you, Bruce. Welcome aboard,” Tony declared, and shook Bruce’s hand firmly, making the other scientist shoot him that look: the one where it seemed he was trying to decide whether Tony was too crazy _not_ to be hysterically funny, and half-nervous that he was being sold something.

“At least we don’t owe him that favor anymore,” Steve sighed, starting to run his hands through his hair, then stopping with a slightly odd look on his face.

Clint, near the Captain’s right, looked deeply disconcerted––possibly even just the slightest bit conflicted. Bruce blinked at them then caught sight of movement out of the corner of his eye and turned his head. His expression shifted into the one Tony thought of as his exasperated-and-resigned-yet-zen-about-it-and-bitterly-amused look.

That was all the warning Tony got before two long bare arms wrapped firmly around his waist and Loki’s chin settled on his shoulder, making him jump slightly. “Hey, darling. Not sleeping well?”

Loki made a small noise that to everyone else might’ve sounded merely noncommittal; to Tony, it sounded a bit like he’d hit the nail on the head and the god of mischief was keeping a lid on it whilst in front of other people. “If you all are quite done with him, I would like my fiancé back now,” Loki said, to the rest of the Avengers.

Tony turned his head just enough to whisper, lips barely moving, voice hardly audible even to himself, “You okay?”

Loki shot him a tired, sidelong look that indicated he had some explaining to do as to why the answer to that question was complicated, then smiled with a hint of smugness and madness that let him know he at least had a few new plans to resolve it all.

“Please go,” Clint sighed. “Anywhere but here.”

“So long as you don’t continue to ogle me as I leave,” Loki said flatly.

Tony’s expression darkened. With all of the melodrama he could muster, he picked up a spoon from the bar top and pointed it threateningly at the archer. “I’ll be watching you, Cupid.”

Clint bristled, all but snarling at them. “Fuck off.”

Natasha remained silent, but was smirking fit to give the Cheshire cat a run for his money, as she sipped at her coffee.

“Loki? Next time you come to fetch Tony, would you mind putting a shirt on?” Steve asked calmly.

“I would, actually,” the god of mischief replied. “You can’t tell me this is the first time a male in this part of the tower has walked about without one.”

Everyone around the table exchanged glances, but avoided eye contact with Natasha.

Loki noticed. “I’m terribly sorry; I didn’t intend to exclude you.”

“It’s only happened the once. If I hadn’t still been wearing a bra, poor Steve may never have recovered.”

Captain America sighed, covering his face with one hand, muttering something incoherent under his breath.

“That was a good day,” Bruce reminisced.

“Agreed,” Clint conceded.

Tony patted Loki’s arms. “Quick, while they’re distracted,” he said, in a loud stage-whisper. He then yelped as Loki took that as a challenge, and swept him off the barstool, lifting him bridal-style as though he weighed no more than a large and particularly unwieldy pillow. “You bastard! Put me down.”

“No,” Loki said, turning on his heel and starting to stroll back toward the elevator.

Tony struggled, mostly for show. “Ass!”

“Yours. I plan to do things to it,” Loki said, just before the elevator doors closed.

Steve just barely avoided a spit take, but went into a coughing fit as a result. Clint patted him hard on the back, looking a bit uncomfortable himself.

Natasha shot him a knowing look.

“Not a word!” Clint growled, pointing a finger at her.

“I didn’t say anything,” she said airily. Then added, under her breath and in Russian, “ _Tall and lanky has always been your type with boys. Pity he’s quite as taken as he is, or I’d offer to lure him in for you, darling_.”

Clint’s face went beet red and he hissed, through gritted teeth, “I _hate_ you.”

“No you don’t.”

“I wish I could, sometimes.”

“Fair enough.”

“I get the feeling that I really don’t want to know,” Steve muttered.

“Same. Let’s be glad neither of us speak Russian,” Bruce agreed.

 

~~

 

As soon as the doors closed, Loki gently set Tony down, then pinned him against the wall and caught his mouth in a ravenously hungry, desperate sort of kiss: all need and thirst and itching bones and desire for control. The engineer made a small noise of surprise, then a lower, more guttural moan as Loki’s hands slid down the back of his pants and under his shirt respectively: greedy for skin and closeness, hurried and messy and _shaking_.

 _Ah_ , Tony managed to observe, even as the blood in his body rushed south and he matched the god of mischief parry for parry in the slide of tongues and occasional teeth: the forcefulness of it bruising, but not enough to make either of them consider stopping, by a long shot. _Not alright, then._ He gripped Loki’s bare waist, fingers digging in hard, and rolled his hips up against the god of mischief, whose breath stuttered appropriately. Tony bit Loki’s lower lip sharply. “You’re shaking,” he said, voice firm and no-nonsense, though with an edge of roughness and arousal.

“Yes. Bad dream. Awful dream,” he muttered against Tony’s mouth. “I need–––I need this.” His voice dropped an octave, quite unfairly. “I need to make you _scream_.” He dipped his head down, dragged teeth along the column of the engineer’s throat, biting and sucking right where the veins were closest to the surface: tender against his tongue.

Gasping and feeling his body respond _very_ enthusiastically, Tony struggled to maintain focus. “Loki, you’ll have to tell me-” He cut off when Loki pushed down his jeans and knelt. Then he sucked in a breath as the god of mischief swallowed him whole: no teasing, barely any warning––just wet, welcoming heat and Loki humming around him. “ _Ahhh_ not fair but, oh, fuck don’t you stop!” he hissed, breath hitching as Loki’s hands––those marvelous, devilish, beautiful hands––joined in, began caressing just the way he liked: slow, just a bit out of joint compared to the rhythm Loki’s mouth kept up, changing tactics just frequently enough to drive him mad. When the elevator reached the penthouse, neither of them bothered moving, though Tony managed to fumble for the button to lock the elevator in place for a while. Then he stopped thinking altogether for several long, glorious minutes of Loki’s undivided attention being bestowed upon his cock. “Fuck, _Loki––god,_ you’re so good. Don’t stop, don’t-” words failed him as Loki did something with his tongue that made his knees weak, while one of those long fingers pressed at his entrance: promising, slow and demanding. Tony’s vision went white and he lost track of all but the persistent, continued pressure and teasing from Loki’s mouth: not letting him come down fully from that high until he all but begged, as the pleasure bordered on pain.

Then Loki gently released him, those devilish hands pinning Tony’s hips to the wall serving as the only thing keeping the engineer upright until Loki stood and used the rest of his body for much the same purpose. The god of mischief’s lips were red and unrelenting, not quite gentle when they lured Tony’s into another, slower kiss; although when the engineer reached for the drawstrings of those pants, one of Loki’s hands gripped his wrist hard. “Patience,” Loki growled.

“That’s real funny coming from you just now,” Tony countered, breathless, looking up into those dark green eyes, seeing fresh cracks in the surface: deep ones. He arched his hips up against Loki’s, and let the god of mischief see him shiver at the feel of cloth and friction on his over-sensitized flesh.

Loki moaned, low and lovely. “You are breathtaking, my love,” he purred, and removed the only clothing Tony had left: the t-shirt. “Bed. Now.”

“What happened to patience?” Tony asked innocently.

Loki took hold of his hips again, meaning to drag him, but Tony’s feet tripped him up and the god found himself off-balance just long enough for Tony to swap their positions, pinning him against the wall with enough force to rattle the glass of the mirrors on the walls. Loki’s eyes narrowed: stubborn, predatory. “Tony...”

“You want me to scream for you, honey, you’ll have to earn it,” the engineer rumbled, his hands trailing down Loki’s sides, pushing those pants down past his hips and letting his thumbs rub over the tender skin alone his hipbones.

Loki tilted his head a little, calculating and curious. “Oh will I?” he mused, his voice low and rough-edged. A moment later, Tony found his back against the opposite wall of the elevator, and he was an inch higher than being perfectly eye-to-eye with the god of mischief, whose hand pressed hard on his collarbone, thumb flicking back and forth over his throat. On the way there, Tony had felt a sensation that had reminded him of being hurled out a window, and decided firmly this was far better than defenestration. He wrapped his legs around Loki’s waist where the god’s body kept him pinned in place like a butterfly on a display board.

“Yeah,” he rasped, all hungry jagged edges of his own. “You need me to scream. I need to see you _burn_.” He leaned his head down, mouth close enough to Loki’s to feel the god of mischief’s breath catch at the words. “I nearly lost you. If I’m not the one taking you apart tonight, and getting reacquainted with every glorious inch of you slowly, and intimately, then I need you like this. I need to see what’s burning you up like this.” He curled a hand around the back of Loki’s neck, fingers tangling in his hair. “I need you to leave scorch-marks from it while you pull us back together.”

Loki shuddered against him with a strangled moan, and bit gently at his mouth: sharp teeth dragging lightly over swollen lips. “I love you. Yes. Tony Stark, you are _perfect_ and I fucking _love_ you,” he growled, and dragged Tony out of the elevator.

It was a miracle they made it as far as the bedroom. Tony would later reflect that they hadn’t walked so much as danced their way there: somewhere between tango and mixed martial arts. They didn’t make it to the bed, though.

Loki pinned him against the dresser, and once he’d used a bit of sleight-of-hand to procure lubrication from one of the top drawers, Tony started losing ground, because Loki’s hands were positively _sinful_ and those long fingers too clever for their own good.

Tony was panting hard, his stream of expletives starting to de-cohere as Loki’s hot mouth attacked his throat and those fingers curled inside him, moving fast across his prostate and making him think nothing more than _Loki, Loki, yes, more, Loki,_ repeated over and over in his head, only interrupted when the god of mischief commanded sharply, “Turn for me.”

The engineer shot him a look, but Loki merely shot a pointed glance over his shoulder. Tony turned enough to see and recall the large mirror there, and he began to grin. “Oh, I _see_.”

“I’ve been meaning to make use of this for ages,” Loki purred.

Tony shivered. “Very good plan.” He turned, then, resting his hands on the dresser. He expected a bit more teasing, and was a little surprised at how quickly he found the god of mischief pressed against the lines of his spine, biting hard enough at the back of his neck to make him gasp. Then Loki pulled his hips up and back, and pushed into him, not slow, but not rushed either, making Tony moan low and broken. “Fffuck.”

“Look up. You wanted burning?”

Slowly, Tony lifted his head and met Loki’s gaze in the mirror. He groaned. Those cracks were all open, letting all that scorching darkness out, just for a while: tempered by affection, tempered by respect, but black and ferocious nevertheless. “ _Yes_. Now fuck me.”

“How do you want it?”

“Just do it.”

“Not until you tell me,” Loki growled. “I want to hear you.”

“Hard: I want––god, Loki, I want to feel you for days,” Tony bit out.

“Very good,” the god of mischief whispered, and proceeded to give him precisely what he asked for: unforgiving, unrelenting, and unerringly good at hitting him right where the pressure and friction made him see sparks.

Tony ran out of words, caught in Loki’s stare in the mirror, and the feel and sight of that incredible fucking. It didn’t take long before he was hovering at the edge, more than ready to fall over it––and then Loki slowed down. Tony regained his verbosity and proceeded to swear in English, Spanish, French and Italian.

Loki only bit down where neck met shoulder, still holding his gaze in the mirror. “I need you to scream for me, Tony.” The god of mischief slowed down further, even though it made his own arms shake almost as much as Tony’s.

“I need you _faster_ ,” Tony bit back. “Please!” He jerked at the sudden feel of Loki’s hand around his cock: grip firm, thumb tracing up along his length, but not actually stroking. His grip tightened when Tony bucked his hips helplessly, not letting him get any further friction. “ _Fuck_.” His shaking arms gave out and he would have slumped forward if not for Loki wrapping an arm tight around his waist.

“I want you watching,” Loki hissed. “While you feel every second of it.”

Tony shuddered. “Loki, please, for fuck’s sake!”

“What do you _need_?”

“I _need_ you to fuck me harder,” Tony growled, low and commanding even as it cracked with desperation. “ _Now_.”

Loki sped up, just a little: not nearly enough. “Pretty, but you’re not half so far gone as I’d like you to be before I give you that.”

“Cruel fucker.” He was rapidly losing the ability to speak, and Loki’s hand on his cock was stroking now, teasing and maddening and distracting: not enough.

“Don’t pretend for a second you don’t love it,” Loki shot back.

Tony’s only response was an incoherent moan that might have been a plea. He had no more words. He had only frustration and the litany of possessive encouragement Loki hissed against his neck. Tony lost track of how long he hovered there on the knife’s edge between pleasure and anguish, before Loki finally saw what he’d been waiting for.

“There,” Loki breathed in his ear, his expression fierce with concentration and the effort of holding back. “Now don’t you look _gorgeous_.” Then he proceeded to deliberately let his control slip and began fuck Tony hard enough that the corners of the dresser left marks in the wall behind it. His hand around the engineer’s cock was smoother, almost kind, in sharp contrast.

Caught off-guard and wound up tight with need, Tony did indeed make a sound very much like a scream as he came hard, and kept making sounds as Loki rode him through it until he was boneless and had only Loki’s name on his lips. He managed to keep watching even then, until the god of mischief finally lost it, and came with a low, rasping cry, muffled against Tony’s shoulder, all his masks falling away like so much broken glass. The heat of it seemed to cauterize a few open wounds there underneath them, somewhere in his mind: cleansing, and stopping the bleeding for a while. There really was nothing else on earth better for tightening up the old self-control, and Tony knew that, and knew Loki knew that he did. It was what they always had in for each other: offer, challenge, and acceptance––even if it encouraged a few bad ideas.

How they managed to get to the bed after that, Tony could never remember, but it was a brilliant idea, and he heartily approved. After they managed to catch their breaths, Tony asked lightly, “Remember the time, down in the lab, when you noticed the video feed of us on one of the screens?”

Loki, now curled against his chest and looking deceptively warm and cuddly, made an affirmative noise.

“And the other time I handcuffed you to that ceiling fixture?”

At that, Loki made a low, appreciative sound. “Yes.”

“Tomorrow night, we are combining those, and I’m going to make _you_ scream.”

Loki shivered a little, but nuzzled closer against his chest. “Did I happen to mention how much I love you?”

“Love you, too,” Tony murmured, and let his eyes drift shut, enjoying the calm for a while longer yet. He slipped into a light doze for a while, but woke when Loki pulled the blankets over them.

“You still have some talking to do,” he reminded.

“Yes,” Loki agreed, his movements still languid and boneless, and his self-deprecating smile had some genuine warmth in it now, though it faded quickly as he again curled up against Tony. “I wasn’t alone, in the gem. There’s a dozen or so souls in there, seemingly content with their lot; the place is meant to be idyllic and paradisiacal.” He sighed, his brow furrowing. “They weren’t cause for much concern, though. Mistress Death’s unexpected visit rather was.”

Tony felt as though he’d had ice-water poured over him. “What?”

Loki tugged at him, until Tony leaned over him, half-sheltering, half resting on him. “I owe her a debt, as you know. She would not take my life––not before I have repaid that.” He took a deep breath.

“What does she want?”

“The only thing that death always wants,” Loki murmured, his eyes dark and momentarily distant. “To take that which is hers.”

Tony leaned his head down a bit further until Loki focused on him again. “Specifics, Loki.”

So the god of mischief told him of the conversation he had exchanged with her whilst in the Soul gem.

Tony nodded. “That’s not all.”

“No,” Loki agreed, “that’s not all.” He took a deep breath. “She invaded my dream. Or I summoned her to it. I’m no longer sure. No one _summons_ her without killing something, though, so I suppose it must have been her idea, rather than merely my questions.”

“I can see that being a bad dream. How bad?”

“Very.” Loki ran a hand through his own hair. Then, finding that inadequate, he carded his fingers through Tony’s, which helped a bit more. “The void has horrors in it, and I am every day more grateful that they did not slither into the depths of your mind as they have done mine. They linger, they _writhe_. It’s only truly awful when things are too quiet and too still for too long––but when it is...” His eyes squeezed shut.

Tony waited, leaned into Loki’s fingers when they stilled in his hair.

“She made me remember, lured them out with that, and then she swept them back as though they were merely dust,” Loki murmured. “They are hers, in some way. She might take them, if she wished: not the memories, not the scars, but those living, repulsive remnants of the void.”

“At a higher price, I’m guessing?” the engineer whispered.

“Yes.”

After a long moment’s hesitation, and briefly recalling that he had done terrible and regrettable things before, when his heart hurt like this, Tony found only eerie certainty here. He said, low and calm, “Name it.”

Loki’s eyes opened wide. “Tony?”

“Name the price.”

Hesitantly, Loki did so.

It was steep, Tony silently agreed. It would be tricky, and reckless, and utterly insane. “You don’t have the Time gem,” he said quietly.

At that, Loki’s lips twitched with the fleeting ghost of a grin.

Tony smiled: cold and calculating. “Tell me.”

Loki told him of the idea he’d had, and the engineer settled atop him, gentle and comfortable and close. He whispered questions. Loki admitted doubts. Tony then began to smile further, as a few ideas of his own sprung up.

“Why stop at one lie, when you can make several?” Tony said. “Go big or go home, Loki.”

“You’re almost as bad an influence as I am.”

“Don’t pretend for a second you don’t love it.”

Loki kissed him, soft and reverent. “Never. I never could.”

“Liar.”

“ _Your_ liar.”

“My liar,” Tony agreed, and kissed him back, only a little less chaste. “All mine.”

 

~~

 

Thor stood leaning against Jane’s van, waiting nervously in the middle of nowhere some 30 miles south of Santa Fe, New Mexico.

“I know he said noon, but did he say how he’d be getting here?” Jane asked, eyeing the horizon curiously from where she perched atop the van. If Loki planned to arrive by helicopter or something, they should have been at least a visible speck by now; although Jane hardly suspected Loki would. She had gotten to know him a little while Thor had been acting as his “parole officer” on earth, and it had even gotten to the point she and Loki could stand each other, once she managed to lasso him into discussing the rainbow bridge in more detail: the materials it was made of, and to some extent how they worked. He had been mildly intrigued, although he had not deigned to appear overtly impressed, by her intellect and one or two of her theories.

The first thing Jane had learned about Loki the person, rather than just Loki the villain, was that he had a flair for the dramatic that couldn’t be matched––well, except perhaps by the likes of Tony Stark.

“If he is as drained of his magic as he suggested,” Thor said, “he would need to use something more like Midgardian technology or machines to-”

And that was when, in a swirl of dust, Loki and Tony Stark appeared a mere three feet in front of him, seemingly from thin air: Loki in relatively casual Asgardian garb, Tony in what was (for him) a relatively casual, tailored Armani suit. Tony had apparently decided against wearing a tie. He was holding a deep purple gemstone the size of a small quail egg in one hand; it was connected to a chain, made of a familiar gold-titanium alloy, hanging about his neck. After smiling cheekily at Thor, he tucked the stone away back under his shirt.

“You were saying, hon?” Jane mused, teasing.

“That I have a grave tendency to underestimate my brother’s penchant for theatrics,” Thor returned, smiling a little and helping her down from the roof of the van when the toe of her boot nudged his shoulder.

“I _have_ warned you against that before,” Loki said.

“I thought you were out of magic?” Thor asked.

“I am still recovering, yes, and am being frugal with what I have regained.” He smiled wickedly. “That was, however, not mine.”

Thor turned a questioning look to Tony.

The billionaire patted his shirt where the stone rested. “New toy, recently collected from an over-confident sorcerer passing through town. It’s a fascinating study, really,” he explained, without really explaining.

Thor snorted at them both and shook his head.

Jane, once on the ground, stepped up to them, shaking Loki’s hand. “I’m glad you’re alright, for what it’s worth.”

“My thanks,” Loki said, and even meant it a little. “How goes your research?”

“Very well. I made a lot of progress. That said...” She grinned widely, and shot Tony a look before stepping over to him as well, though rather than shake his hand she smacked his shoulder. “I sent you one or two of my reports. And implementation ideas from you are... where?”

“Yes, I know, and I’m sorry,” Tony conceded, only a little guiltily. “It’s just been a bit busy lately, with him getting caught in a pocket dimension, and harassing S.H.I.E.L.D. and finishing the new features on on the Mark IX––I’ll send them to you when we get back. Promise.” He held up a hand. “Scout’s––er––Avenger’s honor.”

“Yeah, I can’t picture you as a scout, somehow,” Jane mused. She glanced skyward when the lighting suddenly changed a bit, and noticed the clouds gathering. “It’s always creepy that your gatekeeper just _knows_ ,” she said, addressing Loki.

“He watches,” Loki replied. “Which, in its own way...”

“Is a bit more creepy,” Jane muttered. “I think I’ll get out of the way now.” She shot Tony a questioning look.

He met it with a wide, brilliant grin. “C’mon, Thor. Let’s go.”

“Wait, he can-” Jane started.

“Long story,” Thor muttered, shaking his head. “My brother is a talented thief and very lucky that he was not severely punished for it. I’ll explain later.” He kissed her forehead and stepped back a few paces to stand beside his brother. “Heimdall, open the bi-frost!”

With a whirl of noise and color, they were gone.

Jane was left blinking after them. “Tony Stark, you lucky son of a bitch.”

 

~~

 

Odin All-Father was many things: easily surprised had never been one of them. Loki managed it more easily than most, and with this most recent request it was once more not difficult to see why.

“I don’t want the gem itself,” Loki assured, “I don’t even want to _touch_ it. I just need a very, _very_ good copy. Good enough to pull a few big, impressive temporal tricks before it falls apart. No time-travel, even: just the ability to reverse or greatly speed-up.” A pause. “A lot of that.”

Odin, seated on his throne, stared hard at his son where the god of mischief knelt at the base of his throne. A mere step behind him, to Loki’s right, stood Tony Stark, wearing a pair of terribly expensive designer shades that made the guards wonder how on earth the human could see well enough to walk without tripping. “You would ask me to entrust a great deal to you, Loki.”

“I know,” Loki said softly, looking very nearly humble, though his eyes were bright with the glitter of restlessness and plotting and mischief. “I have a plan.”

“You often have several,” Odin said, sounding not at all reassured.

“These ones in particular have been reviewed by a third party with a pertinent interest in Loki’s well-being, as well as that of the rest of the universe and something a bit like the greater good,” Tony interrupted, his voice calm and business-like. He took off the sunglasses briefly, to show some iota of respect, and tucked them into his suit’s breast pocket. “Well. As much ‘greater good’ as is ever _practical_ to aim for, of course.” He flashed a quick, competent smile.

At that, Odin looked at once surprised and amused. Also, to Loki’s keener eyes, perhaps a little disconcerted, though no one else would detect as much. “You’re aware of these plans, Avenger?” There was almost a bit of disbelief there.

“Yes.” Tony raised an eyebrow. “I contributed to them.”

Odin looked back at Loki then, questioning. _You? Sharing plans?_ the look silently inquired, not without a bit of incredulity.

Loki let his masks fall away, very deliberately, knowing Odin would be able to see it. His expression turned measured, calculative, and a bit cold, but he nodded, and when he spoke his voice was curt and sincere, “Yes, he has. I would not break my word to this man, father. Not for all the nine worlds.”

“Then he has considerably more privilege than many of the rest of us,” Odin countered, but he was smiling vaguely. He rose to his feet, and Loki followed suit, stepping back as his father descended toward them. “I am most curious, my son, how you even discovered the Time gem to be in my possession.”

“I find out a lot of things, given time and opportunity,” Loki replied, his eyes momentarily very open, very cool and thoughtful as he regarded his adoptive father. “Even more so, of very recent.”

Odin nodded. “I would bind you into a deal with this.”

Loki inclined his head, eyes downcast. “I had presumed you would.”

“Then what are your terms?”

“I desire a powerful copy of the Time gem: good enough to fool one of its former owners, and with enough power to age or de-age a being of his sort to a significant degree, as well as advance or revert one or two significant events of no longer than ten minutes while preserving the memory of actions taken therein.” He smiled thinly: just a quick flicker of humor. “Just one or two parlor tricks, really. Also, I request that I be present to witness you create it.”

Odin’s eyes narrowed a little. “You see a great deal; that alone may be worth more than a copy of the Time gem itself.”

Loki said nothing to that, his expression unchanging.

The All-Father shook his head, then looked up as Munnin chose that moment to glide into the room and perch on his shoulder. After a few moments listening, Odin’s expression turned just a little more grim. Then he returned his gaze to the god of mischief. “Your first condition is that you must bring back to me any copies of the Infinity Gems you may return from your endeavors with, and create no further copies thereafter without informing me.”

Loki looked a bit irked at that, but nodded. “I concede to the first condition.”

“The second is that you must go aid in the prevention of too large a scene within my home,” Odin said, more gently. “Your daughter arrived earlier, with her love, to visit myself and Frigga. I parted with them some half-hour before your arrival, after conversing with them at length. Apparently, word of her arrival reached Sigyn.”

Loki’s masked expression cracked for a moment, then turned deadly calm. “She is here, then.”

“Yes. She only just arrived.”

“I concede. Any further conditions?”

“Yes, but they are not for you.” He glanced pointedly at Tony Stark, whose eyes widened only a little. “Go to them, Loki.”

Loki nodded sharply, and turned on his heel. He paused briefly to whisper a low reassurance to Tony and squeeze his arm, then stalked out of the throne room in long, loping strides, looking wolfish, every click of his boots precise and intimidating even as they became more faint with distance.

Tony watched him go, eyebrows raised. “Wow. You’re sure he won’t kill anyone?”

“Of those present where he is going, I hardly think so. He and Sigyn most often get along well enough on their own, but he has always been too aware of the causes of strain between Hel and her mother, and is more inclined to side with his daughter. As am I, though it is not my place to interfere.” Odin stepped closer. “I would have words with you, Anthony Stark.”

“I had a feeling.” Tony folded his arms behind his back, feeling acutely aware of the fact that all of his armor and weapons were worlds away, quite literally. He was reassured, however, by the warm weight of the Space gem just below his collarbone: between that, and his own wits, he could handle a great deal. “You aren’t sure you believe me at all, are you?”

Odin smiled thinly. “My son is many things: talented at the arts of misdirection, deception and careful omission––those qualities reside very near the top of the list.” He looked Tony up and down for a moment, then, his expression pensive. “That said, he has given you gifts which have actively endangered himself and his own interests. The only other, in the past few centuries, to be consistently treated in such a manner by him is Hel. I have no doubt of their bond, and I know him to be far more sincere with her than he will ever be toward me.”

Tony swallowed tightly, feeling a bit tingly suddenly. “I’m––aware that I’m a bit of an unusual case.”

“That’s an interesting stone in the ring you’re wearing, Mr. Stark,” Odin observed. “And let us say that I am not unaware of certain traditions on earth.”

At that, Tony’s mouth went very dry. They hadn’t actually discussed how they might bring up the ‘engagement’ subject in Asgard, but Tony had gotten the impression that keeping it quiet, at least for a while, would be in their best interests; he didn’t know the proper etiquette for this, and he had a feeling that while Loki was fine with trolling the press on earth, Asgard would be trickier. Being a billionaire philanthropist was something that could be temporary; being royalty in a place like Asgard was something altogether different. “Yes. I, ah, was honestly hoping you were,” Tony said, sincerely.

“I’ll not be announcing anything until Loki is rather more comfortable with the idea. He is not altogether fond of being the center of public attention when it relates to his personal life rather than his tricks or accomplishments.”

“Same here, really, whenever possible,” Tony admitted. “And I’m not as familiar with the gossip magazines and reporters of Asgard––presuming you have them.” His brow furrowed. “Do you have a free press, now I think of it?”

Odin chuckled. “Well, we hardly spread the news by smoke-signals.”

Tony nodded, smirking a bit. “You’re fine with this, though?” He raised is left hand and wriggled his fingers illustratively.

The gallows-god of knowledge and wisdom stared hard at him for a few long moments. “You are unique character, Mr. Stark: leaps and bounds ahead of most other minds around you, I believe. Even here...” He gestured at the throne room around them. “Even here in Asgard, I can think of few who might outwit you, from all I have seen of your capabilities.”

“You do the same creepy all-seeing thing Heimdall does?” Tony asked, as delicately as he could.

“Not quite, no.” Odin chuckled. “I have watched the heroes of earth over the centuries. The newest of them, in these times, are powerful enough to topple some gods. I have always been interested in humanity’s capacity for growth, change, and advancement.”

“Loki mentioned something like that,” Tony admitted, “when I asked why Asgard didn’t exactly look like a planet, so much as a large piece of one suspended over... whatever it is you’re suspended over.”

Odin nodded. “Did he also perhaps mention to you what happened on our world, shortly before it was lost, which prepared this piece for us?”

Tony shook his head.

“Walk with me,” Odin said, and began to lead him from the hall. With Tony following, standing at his left, Odin began, “There was a vast war, more vicious than nearly any that your world has ever seen. Whole nations tearing each other apart, people quite losing their minds in the pursuit of their single-minded goal––to postpone death indefinitely.” He shook his head. “That world was not too different from yours. Their population was only a little smaller, at three billion. They were naturally long-lived, but not to the same extent as we are now.”

“The apples?” Tony prompted.

“They were not developed, in any useable fashion, until fifty years before the hatching,” Odin said calmly. “They were developed by a nation in the north, near the sea. It was often cold––all descriptions of it remind me of my first visits to earth, as you might imagine.”

“The ones that sort of inspired people who’d one day be vikings?”

“Yes.”

Tony recalled an interesting fjord-related incident he’d gotten caught up in around Norway, in the suit, just last year. That had been fun. “I can picture it.”

“One of its mountains is still with us, at the center of what remains of the old world––our new one. That is where Idunn has been tending her orchard since the first tree was planted there; she is older than all of us, and more silent. She was an independent researcher, back then, and it was only once she began sending out experimental results, and samples of the fruit (though no seeds) that the chaos began.” He turned to look at Tony very seriously. “Three billion people who never wanted to die, never wanted their children to die, and most of whom had no thought for what the consequences may be.”

Tony considered. “I can see that being problematic.”

Odin nodded. “With the very best of intentions, to the most horrifying results,” he said softly. “The population quadrupled within forty years, then abruptly began to decline again as the wars started. There was not enough food, not enough infrastructure. Many left the planet for other worlds, but most could not. The nation high in the mountains became a refuge from the chaos. Surrounded by mountains on the landward side, and high cliffs near the sea, it was fairly defensible. The greatest minds of those final days found their way there, and provided protection, and hope. They devised means by which a smaller population could sustain itself without the explosive results. They sunk it into the very earth, water, and air of the place––and they prepared to leave. They built the structures necessary for their departure, making minor adjustments for fresh refugees from all corners of their world, though the majority were still of that single nation. They managed to depart, and get out of range, so that two years after they left, they looked back, and saw their world destroyed not by their own race, but by a single being breaking the planet all around it apart like an eggshell.”

“This is meant to warn me, isn’t it?” Tony asked.

“It is,” Odin said, unsmiling, and stopped walking just outside a pair of tall doors. “There is a reason the gift you were given is such a closely-guarded one. You may wish to share it, but you of all men know what may happen even with fairly _benign_ gifts-” He tapped Tony’s arc reactor with one finger. “-when they are shared in a manner beyond control.”

Tony stared down at Odin’s hand, thoughtful. “But smaller breakthroughs are fine, I suppose.” He looked up at the god of knowledge. “What makes my blood different than that of the average mortal these days could do things other than provide immortality: curing cancer, maybe. That wouldn’t be bad.”

Odin laughed. “Do as you will. I cannot truly stop you––though if it comes down to it, I would fight to do so; I merely ask you to be as careful with Loki’s gift to you as you are with your gifts to your fellow men, if not more so.”

Inclining his head a little, Tony said in low, sincere tones, “You have my word.” He felt an odd, vaguely electric sensation along his spine at that, and blinked a bit in surprise.

Odin nodded. “Some of those effects, from the founders of Asgard, show in strange ways, Mr. Stark. If you are at all accustomed to giving your word, and failing to follow through, you may soon find it much more difficult.” He smiled. “I do not doubt your word to me, in this case, but given your nature, I feel you should be warned.”

Tony cleared his throat. “Any other effects I might need to know about?”

“Well, I’m not at all sure that the affects which limit the number of offspring most Asgardians are capable of having would apply to you.”

“Er... depends on the limitation.”

“Fertility, rather than virility,” Odin clarified.

Tony felt acutely uncomfortable, recalling what Thor had mentioned about Jotuns, and gender, and Asgardian sexual taboos. “That––isn’t anything I’ve considered. At all. And I’m more than sure Loki wouldn’t––I wouldn’t––no. Just... No. Not a concern. I think he’s fine with Hel, and I’m––still really fine with not being a father. Yes.” That was definitely the instinctive reaction. The idea of having kids had always been unnerving to him in the past: the imminent prospect of screwing up, the necessary changes to his lifestyle, and the risks inherent to any child of his given his inability to recall numerous small but important things for days at a time while he worked––things like food. There was a reason he had robots rather than pets that might require regular amounts of food and water.

Odin looked amused, but shook his head. “Other than that, and the unique difficulties we have with any attempt to break our oaths, no other effects tend to linger with time spent outside Asgard. Here, however, time has a way of slipping by. Our civilization evolves slowly, these days: over-cautiously, almost.”

“You being a bit of an exception, from all I’ve heard,” Tony said.

“Before my father’s death, and into the early first millennia or two of my reign, I spent much of my adult life abroad. Notably, Thor did not, aside from some journeys to earth all those centuries ago. Loki, however, did.” He sighed slightly. “In retrospect, Thor would do well to see more of the nine realms as he has come to see earth now.”

Tony couldn’t help but smirk. “I dunno. Where would the Avengers be with only _one_ member in a state of perpetual culture-shock?”

Odin shot him a glare, but was still smiling. Then he looked pointedly at the doors they were standing in front of. “Down the hall is one of our private parlors. Frigga is most likely still in there. Whether the others are is more questionable, but you may be needed.”

“By Loki?”

“Perhaps.” The gallows god raised an eyebrow. “I must prepare to make this mock-gem for him. It will take me an hour or so.” He inclined his head. “I will have you both called for when you are needed, my son.” Then Odin turned, and strode away down the hall.

Tony was left feeling a bit dizzied and oddly warm-and-tingly in the general heart-region––and also oddly steadied. “I can see why he’s the fucking king,” he muttered. That made him recall that Odin had nearly given the throne over to Thor, and he shuddered a little, understanding with abrupt clarity why Loki would wind up committing treason over that. Shaking off those thoughts, he stepped through the doors and into another hall: taller, but narrower, with high windows. He was caught by the rather spectacular view there until he glimpsed a familiar shape out of the corner of his eye.

There were a few benches along the walls under the windows, and on one of them perched Hel, her knees pulled up to her chest with her arms resting loosely over them. Her eyes were shut and her head tilted back to rest against the window. Her expression was caught between confusion and outright anger, with a healthy amount of exasperation overlaying it all. Tony could hear faint voices from the other side of the next set of doors at the other end of the hall, and wondered. He thought about walking up, but the room seemed far too quiet to disturb that way. So he took a shortcut.

“Are you alright?”

Hel jerked in surprise when she heard him suddenly speak, and stared at him with frank incredulity where he stood in front of the bench. “How did you... has my father been teaching you things?”

Tony shrugged. “Usually. This one, though...” He pulled the space gem from under his collar again briefly. “Just a new toy I got from a local back home.”

Hel regarded the gem, thoroughly distracted and jarred from her previous thoughts. “I couldn’t find that one, last time I looked.”

“It found us,” Tony said, tucking it away again. “It didn’t actually go very well, all things considered, but we got out mostly fine in the end.” His brow furrowed in concern. “You look like you’re avoiding someone.”

“I am. Oh, I am,” Hel said, covering her face with her hands as she rubbed them over her eyes. “I hardly know what she thinks she’s-” She cut off, and exhaled a quick, frustrated breath. “It’s my mother. Given father arrived not too long ago, and with Hecate he managed to distract her long enough for me to get a bit of air...” She stopped and shook her head with a familiar crooked smile. “Well, I suppose with both of you here that you might also have been aware of her arrival already.”

“A little bird told Odin about it while we were having a chat, so yes,” Tony said.

Hel turned in her seat and let her feet touch the floor again as she leaned back against the windowsill. She patted the bench next to her. “A chat with Odin, hmm?”

“Yeah. He’s a bit weird.” Tony took a seat next to her.

“How so?”

“I think he sort of asked if I planned to have kids with your dad.”

At that, Hel stared at him with wide eyes for a long moment, then cracked and burst into a fit of giggles.

Tony smiled helplessly, still with a hint of genuine fear. “ _Deeply_ disconcerting.”

“I can’t believe you-” She cut off, laughing a bit more. “I don’t know what would be worse: if that’s true, or if it isn’t and you managed to just make that up.”

“I could _not_ make that up. I hadn’t even considered––I mean––Thor explained some of the cultural...” He gesticulated vaguely. “The Asgardian perspective on the whole... And the way they sort of––but I hadn’t connected that and Loki––oh god I can’t believe I’m even still talking about this. Why do people let me talk?” he groaned, covering his eyes with one hand.

“I strongly suspect they have tried to stop you in the past and failed,” Hel mused.

“True, maybe, probably. Yes,” Tony conceded. “This has been a strange day.”

“Tell me about it,” Hel sighed. “I intended to visit Frigga and Odin and rebuild one or two bridges, introduce them to my wife and she to them, and then Sigyn arrives and––and suddenly she can look me in the eye without me wearing an illusion for the first time in my life, and she’s trying to act like––like we were close as-” She cut off with an exasperated sound. “No apologies, no explanation, just sudden and frankly _suspicious_ affection––touching me, smiling like she never... never.” Hel sighed. “I do not like this. I do not know what she wants, or what has changed all of a sudden, but I do not like it. This savors of something that will only bring more pain to all concerned.” She folded her arms and stared up at the ceiling, blinking furiously.

“This might be the wrong time to ask this particular question, but, uh––you’re married?” Tony inquired lightly.

Hel smiled, warmth returning to her expression. “Yes. And she’s wonderful.” Her eyes fell open as an odd thought seemed to occur to her. “Hmm.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” Hel said lightly, shaking her head a bit. She cleared her throat. “Would you like to meet her?”

“Are you comfortable going back in there just yet?”

Hel considered. “Five minutes.”

Tony nodded. “So she’s playing nice all of a sudden?”

“Yes, and I do not understand why; although I’m not sure I wish to.”

“About the illusions...”

“She always insisted I wear one, both in public-” Hel snapped her fingers, and instantly was all blonde, pale and pretty: no hint of blue. Then she snapped again, and returned to normal. “-and around her, unless father was there. She would never ask in front of him, except to insist before letting me out of the house. Father never did. He explained to me that wearing the illusion in public was to protect me from the stupidity of others.” She smiled a little. “He has never flinched from me. He even took me to Alfheim without Sigyn knowing, and they loved me there instantly. Some of them even had markings a lot like mine, all over, but in shades of green, or black and grey.” She smiled vaguely. “Initially––well. Sigyn looks Aesir, you see, but, ah. Well. How familiar are you with Beltane?”

“Uhm. I’m thinking something to do with bonfires, but that’s all I’ve got,” Tony admitted.

“It’s not celebrated in Asgard, but it is in Alfheim, and they have an enormous festival. Bonfires are part of it. Some people from all the nine realms tend to visit. They celebrate with feasting and wine before dusk. After dusk, it’s more wine, and firelight, and dancing. Clothes optional, orgies common.”

Tony smirked. “Sounds like our Mardi Gras, a little.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Hel said. “Sigyn’s mother attended the festival, and as a result, she still is not sure who Sigyn’s father was––no one is. Aesir with fae blood in them fall sort of into the ‘nymph’ category, which mother qualifies for.”

Tony’s eyebrows raised. “Ah.”

“She felt, I think, some resentment of that, and some guilt that I... well.” Hel shrugged. “I look almost more fae than Jotun, really, even now that I know to look for that in the mirror. Except the color-scheme, of course.” Her brow furrowed.

At that, Tony felt an idea itch at him. “You think––” He stopped.

“I suspect,” Hel said quietly, “that she’s more comfortable with me now, knowing that people look at me and see my father’s faults, rather than just hers.” Her lips thinned. “She has always tried to care for me, in her way, and she has never directly harmed me or insulted me. I have never suspected that she did not love me; however, that just wasn’t-” She cut off with a sigh.

“It’s not always enough,” Tony said quietly. After a long silence between them, he began, “I loved my father, but never understood him. He loved me, but also couldn’t keep pace with me. So from when I was about fourteen years old until he died, all we really did was tear at each other.” He snorted. “Then, years later I’ve got this thing keeping me alive.” He tapped the arc reactor, visibly glowing through his shirt. “But the only element that works as a core for it’s poisoning me, and I’m convinced I’m about to die. Nick Fury––apparently he knew my dad, which is disturbing in and of itself––brings me a case of his stuff, and says there’s something I haven’t thought of yet, that dad left me. And he did leave something for me to find, and it saves my life, but dad couldn’t have known about that bit. The part that he did deliberately––he left this tape, addressed to me, complimenting me, telling me I was his greatest creation. Mind you, that was on the same tape as a bunch of outtakes from him selling the whole world on his version of tomorrow, and I learned a lot about being a showman from that man.” Tony ran a hand through his hair, looking uncomfortable. “It was great, to hear him say that, to hear him talk to me like that, and mean it, but he filmed that when I was six or something. I knew it was true, but I also knew once I started to become who I am these days, we couldn’t stand each other. Years of him hurting me, me hurting him––I did love him, or it wouldn’t have hurt at all, but I still can’t say I ever _liked_ him, once I started growing up and could tell the difference.”

Hel looked at him, thoughtful. “That _is_ an interesting story, but not as long as I was led to believe,” she said softly.

“Abridged version. Sorry.” He smiled, and was relieved when she returned it.

“You’re right, though. About it... about it not quite being enough.” Hel closed her eyes, letting her head tilt back to rest against the wall. “There is a difference between love and loyalty, versus acceptance and genuine... genuine comfort in someone’s presence. I cannot offer her that any more than she can offer it to me––not without one or both of us lying, and it’s a matter of pride for me that I _don’t_ lie to those I love. When she then lies, it hurts. It hurts just to hear it.”

“Yeah.”

They sat in comfortable silence for another minute.

“I want you to meet my wife now,” Hel said.

“I’d like that.”

 

~~

 

Frigga and Hecate settled onto one of the parlor’s couches as Loki had a word or several with Sigyn on the balcony.

“You’re sure they’ll be okay?” Hecate asked.

“Quite.” Frigga looked at the other goddess with a kind smile. “I haven’t seen any of the Olympians in centuries. How are they?”

Hecate shrugged idly. “Well enough. They believe I’m mad, as usual, but they tend to think that only about the interesting people.” She glanced toward the balcony. “I am glad that Hel invited me, not only to meet you and, ah, inform you of us. I do have some news.”

Frigga nodded. “I had a feeling.”

The smaller goddess hesitated. “Your son looks very well, all things considered. Closing the series of gates he opened up with that feat of his with the rainbow bridge was quite a task. They led to places I never enjoy getting a look at.”

Frigga’s brow furrowed. “Yes. We discussed a number of the things he saw.”

“I don’t envy him that experience,” Hecate mused. “Though he does not appear shattered––for all that something of recent seems to have drained his magic rather spectacularly. I suspect that is another matter entirely, though.”

“He has recovered admirably, though not in full.”

“Few do, if they linger too long,” Hecate said, her brow furrowing. “Some of the others have concerns. He is not the first god to fall into such places and return, but he is one of the more intelligent and least golden to have done so, to our knowledge. Most do not return alone in their own minds. Pieces of the void crawl out with them and often the results can be horrifying.”

Frigga nodded. “I have been keeping an eye on him, as has Odin. He has shown no sign of such an affliction.”

“He is better at hiding matters than anyone else that I have ever met.” Hecate sighed. “It may not manifest for some time. In one case it took many, many years, until the god’s wife was killed––and it all burst free as only a deep well of chaotic madness could.”

“But he was able to prevent himself showing any signs of it before then?”

“Yes, to all but her,” Hecate said. “I spoke with his wife’s spirit not long after Loki returned. I was worried, for Hel’s sake.”

“I understand. I worry for my son’s.” She shook her head.

“Given that Loki, last I heard, had no such close connection-”

“That,” Frigga interrupted, “is no longer the case.”

Hecate blinked a few times. “He found someone?”

“You must have been away for some months, attending your duties,” Frigga murmured. “They’re very much in love, so far as I have seen.”

“You see a great deal,” Hecate murmured. “I never know whether or not to admire your gift, Frigga.”

“Prophecies are best left untold, so I cannot recommend envy. Use of my gift is tricky at best, and before I learned to quiet it, often disastrous at worst. You and your Hel have your visions. They are far less dangerous than mere words.”

Hecate nodded. “Who is Loki’s new love, then?”

“I believe you may meet him soon enough. I do not think, in his current state, that Loki would have come here alone.”

With excellent timing, one of the doors swung open, and Hel stepped back in with only a little more caution than she might have normally. She held it open for Tony as well, and he seemed amused by the gesture.

Hecate shot Frigga a surprised look. “A mortal?” she mouthed silently.

“Not anymore,” Frigga mouthed back, and rose to her feet.

Only a bit belatedly, Hecate followed suit.

Tony approached them with his most charming smile, only a bit surprised when Frigga greeted him with a brief hug. “How are you?”

“As well as can be expected.” She smiled down at him.

“Loki is... ?”

Frigga nodded toward the balcony doors. “He is speaking with Sigyn.”

Hel, looking relieved, caught her lover’s hand, twining their fingers together. “Love, this is Tony Stark. He’s father’s.”

“To clarify, your father’s mine as well,” Tony countered.

“Tony, this is my wife Hecate.”

Tony’s eyebrows raised a little, as he bowed slightly and pressed a brief kiss to the back of Hecate’s hand. “I’ve heard of you, I think.”

“And I you, actually,” Hecate mused. “Your experiments keep opening and closing doors enough to irritate. Gateways and crossroads are a good part of my domain, you see.”

“We could’ve used your help, recently. There was an incident with an Infinity gem that was a real mess,” Tony mused.

“I was in a wormhole for most of the past two days, sorry,” she teased lightly.

“That’s quite fine. I got it handled,” Tony returned.

Then the doors to the balcony opened, and they all turned to look.

Sigyn stepped in first. She was not so tall as her daughter, and while the lines of her face were akin to Hel’s fine features, her hair was a rich brown with hints of red, and her eyes palest blue. She looked, as Hel had suggested, very normal. Her eyes were downcast only briefly, her expression edged with anger, and she stepped quickly, moving away from the door as Loki followed her in and shut it behind him, wearing a carefully masked expression, as well as blue skin and red eyes.

Hecate’s eyebrows raised, and Frigga looked concerned, but Hel and Tony were merely curious. Sigyn took a deep breath and put on a more calm, expression, with a mildly self-deprecating air of good humor.

“My apologies,” Loki said lightly, as the cold abated and he took on his more usual appearance, “for the interruption.”

Sigyn approached Hel directly, and took hold of her free hand. Only up close did Hel notice her mother’s eyes were red around the edges as though she had wept. “I am sorry to have barged in like I have. I merely––I had wish to see you, but felt you would have tried to avoid me.”

“Well,” Hel said, her voice low, “you were not entirely wrong.”

Sigyn nodded. “I know, but perhaps I may speak with you again, another time. Whenever––whenever you are comfortable with it.”

Hel took a deep breath. “I will visit you tonight, after dinner. We may speak then, briefly.” She squeezed her mother’s hand lightly. “But please do not _feign_ enthusiasm toward me like that ever again.”

“Understood.” Sigyn smiled a little sadly and turned to bid farewell to the others, only to notice Tony, and stop short. “I’m terribly sorry––I don’t think we’ve met.”

Loki left the door and sidled up beside Tony. “Tony, this is Sigyn. Sigyn, this is Anthony Stark of Midgard... my betrothed.”

Her eyes widened for just a moment, then she nodded, and met Tony’s gaze again. “I... Well. Congratulations to you both,” she said, a little off-balance.

Tony felt his face heat, but couldn’t quite get the smile off of his face. “Thanks.”

“That’s new,” Frigga murmured, eyebrows raised.

Loki began to look just a bit sheepish.

“I should go, I think,” Sigyn said quickly, smirking good-naturedly at Loki’s obvious discomfort. “Best wishes to you all.” She bowed a little, and exited forthwith.

As the door closed behind her, Loki let out a long, slow breath, looking exhausted. He remained stiff as a board until he felt Tony’s arm slip around his waist and heard the engineer’s low murmur. “Hey, you okay?”

Loki nodded, leaning into the contact and returning the gesture, his hand settling on Tony’s hip. “I am. It was a very... blunt discussion. Very to the point.”

“Raw?” Tony suggested.

“Yes.” Loki met his gaze then. “You?”

“Your father is odd, I told Hel a story, her wife is good at banter and I even got a hug out of it.” He smiled at Frigga for emphasis.

Loki chuckled.

Hecate looked between the two of them with an expression somewhere between amusement, dubiety, and relief. “Didn’t you try to take over Midgard at some point, Loki?”

“Well, it was all sort of a misunderstanding,” Loki replied, sounding much more himself. “I may have deliberately exacerbated it and brought about a great deal of destruction in the process, but I’m not exactly intent on taking the place over any longer.”

“Or blowing it up,” Tony added.

“That was _never_ my plan.”

“Well, you had more success blowing things up than actually taking over anything,” Tony riposted.

“Intentionally,” Loki shot back.

“And we very intentionally kicked your ass.”

“Mostly that was the Hulk.”

“Yes,” Tony admitted, “But _I_ was the one who planned on him showing up.”

“Planned on, rather than planned.”

“Minor details,” Tony dismissed, waving a hand. “And I still took out the rest of that armada they sent to you, all in one fell swoop.”

“With a bomb you had to borrow.”

“Your _army_ was borrowed.”

Hecate giggled a little. “They’re better than a play.”

“Boys,” Frigga warned quietly. Both of them turned to look at her with disconcertingly similar expressions of not-quite-innocence.

“No, let them keep going, this is great,” Hel said quickly. “Usually I’m one of the only ones who can keep up with him like that: getting to watch instead is a novelty.”

Tony opened his mouth, considering a large number of off-color jokes, but Hel looked at him in a way that said _do you really want me to mention off-color subject matter you and I discussed recently?_ which made Tony recall that awkward question from Odin and thus his mouth snapped shut again.

Loki raised an eyebrow, but there was a knock from the hall before he could question anything.

“Prince Loki? The All-Father awaits you,” said the guard, “and you as well, Anthony Stark.”

“Well, this little visit is certainly turning out eventful,” Tony mused.

Loki nodded. “Indeed.”

 

~~

 

By the time they returned to earth, Tony’s head was still swimming with images of orange-gold light and coils of power falling together impossibly and coiling up under Odin’s hands while Loki had watched, rapt, and Tony had tried to wrap his head around how on earth they managed to break physics to do it––or, rather, how they did that without actually breaking physics, which was probably even more complicated an answer. Now, sprawled on the couch with Loki using his chest as a pillow, he watched the god of mischief turning the small orange gem in his fingers, looking thoughtful.

“You think you can manage it?” he asked softly

Loki began to smile, soft and wicked. “I can, yes. Whether it will be of much use will depend entirely on the telepath.”

“You could manage without it. We’d just still need the helmet designs,” Tony muttered.

“Possible, but too great of a margin for error,” Loki murmured. “Is it worth asking the professor to offer them up?”

“S.H.I.E.L.D. records suggest he has a history of not sharing information about Magneto much, so far as I can tell. It took them ages to work out why he even _wore_ that helmet all the time.”

Loki sighed. “I will ask him regardless.”

“Good idea. Better to go in with that plan in mind.”

The god of lies smirked, closing his eyes as Tony’s fingers tangled in his hair. “Precisely so.”

“Why were you blue when you came in?”

Loki sighed. “She mentioned something about resemblance. I became rather irritated, and decided that a visual demonstration might be necessary.” He leaned into the pressure of Tony’s lightly-scritching fingers on his scalp. “She has always seen Hel’s appearance as somehow damaging, and sympathizes with that perceived harm. When Hel was a child, yes, other children would have failed to understand that she was beautiful, because children are fools. It pains me that Sigyn is almost as foolish as that even now.”

“Hel mentioned you took her to Alfheim,” Tony murmured.

Loki smiled at that. “Yes. I wanted her to understand. I spent a number of years there, I had lovers there even. I took it for granted that others in Asgard would consider fae appearance to be beautiful, as I do, and as most humans who have ever met any among the fae tend to. They are not so _simple_ in appearance, and have a wide variety of different peoples with distinct features. Not one of them looked on Hel with concern or pity when I took her there, no disguises on either of us.”

“Good plan.”

“I thought so. Sigyn was horrified, though I still can’t fathom why.”

Tony considered. “Afterward, perhaps Hel was less willing to wear illusions?”

“There was that,” Loki mused.

“How long ago was that, anyway?”

“Hm. Rather over fourteen hundred years ago.”

“Wow. And she still doesn’t get it?”

Loki snorted. “She keeps to her home town––she has ever since we parted ways. It’s a small community, near the foot of the mountain, and does not change much. It’s a bit pastoral, and very quiet. Not a place where many new ideas foment into revolutionary changes in perspective, one might say.”

“Ah, that’d explain it.”

“In retrospect, it’s rather strange that she considered herself in love with me of all people, when she’s so averse to change. She’s steadfast, loyal and reliable, but not adaptable. Not flexible.”

“You thought she was more creative?”

“She sought me out, knowing who I was, my reputation, all the rest. I couldn’t fathom why she would do that if she were not more than she appeared. I determined to find out what that was, and found myself in love with the promise of it. I think that I wanted to be in love more than I wanted the truth, by that point,” Loki murmured. “I determined not to make that mistake again, afterward.”

“Do you regret it at all?”

Loki smiled and let his eyes fall open again, tilting his head back  a bit until he could see Tony’s face. “You’ve met my daughter. How could I possibly regret it?”

Tony smiled back. “I can see your point.” He frowned when his phone went off in his pocket. He didn’t bother trying to move Loki, but took shameless advantage of the gem around his neck and summoned it to his hand. “Strange is _so_ not getting this gem back. Ever.” He hit the answer button and lifted the phone to his ear as Loki chuckled. “Hello? Hm. Oh, yes. How did you get this number? Okay, yeah, I can guess, but I want to know if you got it from S.H.I.E.L.D. or someone I actually care about.” A pause. “No, you’re fine. S.H.I.E.L.D. is fair game for you as far as I’m concerned; where do you think we got our info on you? Yeah, he’s here, just a second. Loki, it’s for you.”

The god of mischief shot him an odd look, but took the proffered phone. “Hello?”

“ _I have an answer for you, Mr. Lie-smith, if I haven’t caught you at a bad time_ ,” said the cultured, decidedly English voice on the other end of the line. He sounded mildly amused, but still with an undercurrent of something more like concern.

“Ah, good to hear from you, professor,” Loki said. “No, it’s not a bad time.”

“ _I seem to have just encountered a problem which your expertise might be of some use for, on which I might spend the favor you mentioned._ ”

Loki’s eyebrows raised. “What sort of problem?”

“ _The daughter of an old friend of mine is in our medical wing. She is not physically hurt, but nor is she well. I believe she may have looked into the wrong rumors, possibly while looking for you. Were you tracking Magneto at any point recently, or seeking him out?_ ”

“Well.” Loki considered his options, and reluctantly chose honesty. “I was, yes. I have an understandable interest in a reliable means by which to block attacks upon my mind, and his helmet qualifies, from what my research tells me. I was hoping he might be inclined to reproduce it.”

“ _Come to the mansion tomorrow. If you can aid Miss Maximoff, I would owe you a favor indeed._ ”

Loki gave a thoughtful hum. “I will come to your mansion tomorrow.”

“ _You have my thanks, Mr. Lie-smith._ ”

“And you have mine. I do hope some good will come of it,” Loki replied.

“ _Good evening to you._ ”

“Goodbye.”

_Click._

Loki handed Tony his phone back. “We have progress.”

“Excellent.” Tony re-pocketed his phone by the same means he’d summoned it. “To celebrate, I propose we adjourn to the lab with a set of handcuffs.”

The god of mischief licked his lips idly as he sat up and met Tony’s gaze again. “Well, I think that if you want me to scream, my love, then you will have to earn it.”

Tony made a low noise in his throat, grabbed Loki by the shirt-collar, and they vanished from the couch entirely, leaving a few articles of clothing behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Flagrant liberties were taken with Norse Mythology and the Marvel-verse version of it alike. Rest assured I know Hel’s and Sigyn’s origins and natures as they are from the original mythos: I’m just choosing to ignore it in favor of the new dysfunctional-family dynamic the Marvel movies started to make, with my own spin on Hel thrown in.
> 
> I have no shame about this whatsoever.


	5. Chapter 5 - brief interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here, have some fanservice. I couldn’t fit it into the next chapter properly, as it doesn’t fit into the narrative, but here by popular request: a lab, a set of handcuffs, and security cameras. Also featuring: Natasha making an archer uncomfortable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shame? What shame? Is that even a word?

On the list of things Loki admired most about Tony Stark, creativity was very near the top. Thus he appreciated the thoughtful arrangement of his current position: handcuffs about his wrists, the chain between them in the grasp of a mechanical arm overhead (normally used for supporting parts of the Iron Man suit while the mad engineer worked on them, or for tasks such as delicately lifting the engine block out of a vintage hot-rod), just high enough over his head to force him to lean back over the worktable, the cool edge of which supported his lower back.

The god of mischief was entirely stripped of clothing by this point, and his pupils were wide and dark as Tony, still wearing a pair of jeans and the space gem around his neck, but little more, looked him over from a few steps away: calculating, appraising, and hungry. He even took a seemingly unhurried stroll around the worktable, eyeing Loki from every angle and nodding silently to himself, seemingly satisfied. Then he was close, hands on the table framing Loki’s hips, leaning in until he knew Loki could feel the air stir between them: intermingled breaths. “You’re gorgeous like this.”

In response, Loki curled one of his long, bare legs around Tony’s and tugged him just a little closer, smiling wickedly as he heard the engineer’s breathing hitch and the inventor shifted them bot a little, so that the trickster perched atop the edge of the table instead of leaning back against it. Overhead, the grip on the chain between his wrists adjusted to maintain the same tension: how thoughtful. “Then you ought to show me how much you appreciate it.”

Tony chuckled, low and dark, curling fingers around the back of Loki’s neck, thumb pressing up against the god of mischief’s jaw: a firm hold, which he used to tilt his lover’s head back. “Patience is a virtue, so I hear.”

“Since when are either of us virtuous?” Loki countered, his eyes fluttering shut as the engineer began mouthing the tender column of his throat: teeth and tongue and suction, all maddening and lovely.

“When we get something we want out of it,” Tony countered. “And _I_ want you to scream for me.”

Loki shivered not-quite-imperceptibly, green eyes falling open to meet Tony’s stare. “Well. You had better get started, then.”

Tony only chuckled again, and tugged at his chin, pulling the god of mischief down into a kiss. It was slow but not gentle, all sinuous teasing and maddening changes in pressure: suction and release, with only the slightest edge of teeth. His hands, fingers splayed wide, explored his skin in a manner unhurried and possessive, seemingly intent on memorizing every inch of him. It made Loki recall Tony’s challenge the day before: _I nearly lost you. If I’m not the one taking you apart tonight, and getting reacquainted with every glorious inch of you slowly, and intimately, then I need you like this..._ _I need you to leave scorch-marks_. The god of mischief couldn’t help the low, hungry sound that escaped his throat, which Tony swallowed with apparent satisfaction.

The engineer broke away and began to bite his way down Loki’s neck, just as those pale, miles-long legs wrapped around his waist. Tony took the opportunity to run his hands over them: thighs and knees, then pulling one free to touch the rest, down to his toes. He repeated the process with the other and was rewarded by Loki’s mouth at his ear, nibbling and sucking just where he know it would make the engineer shudder.

Then his patience started to slip because the god of mischief hissed, low and rough in his ear, “ _Yours_.” From there, things began to blur a bit, rushed and messy.

“Mine,” Tony recalled agreeing, at some point. Then there was Loki’s mouth again, Loki’s hips rolling against him and those legs alternately caressing their way down Tony’s body from waist to thigh, and maneuvering the engineer closer so those hips could go back to driving him to distraction. Tony slipped a hand between their bodies and took hold of Loki’s more than eager cock, stroking deliberately not-hard-enough and driving the god of mischief straight past distraction and headlong into desperation.

“It’s always satisfying when you start cursing in old Norsk,” Tony panted.

Loki responded with a little more swearing when Tony’s hand abruptly stopped, though he sucked in a breath as he felt those clever fingers instead drift lower, along his perineum, light and teasing. Then they left entirely and Loki lifted his head again, holding Tony’s gaze as the engineer paused to slick his fingers with the contents of a bottle of lubricant seemingly summoned from nowhere in particular. The god of mischief couldn’t help but smirk at that. “Did you seriously just use one of the Infinity Gems to summon lube?”

Tony chuckled, and leaned in close over Loki’s body again, one hand cupping the back of the god of mischief’s knee to maneuver one of those long legs just _so_. “Of course I did. This,” he said, slipping two fingers into Loki’s entrance slowly, “is important.”

“Agreed,” Loki said, his voice a little less steady as Tony’s talented hand began to move, doing things that made his back arch and his head fall back. “ _Fffuck_.”

“That’s the idea,” Tony growled, his lips brushing the god of mischief’s exposed throat. “Now I wonder: can I make you come just like this, with just my hand?”

Loki made an incoherent sound in reply.

“You need this, don’t you?” Tony murmured, adding another finger and enjoying the way it made Loki’s hips snap-roll against him in response. “Say it.”

The god of chaos raised his head again, slowly, determined despite how uneven his breathing had become and how his arms, taut with the effort of keeping himself mostly upright, had begun to shake. “Of course I need this,” he hissed. “I need to see you burn for me.” His breath hitched on a moan when Tony again adjusted the angle with that careful, efficient way of his.

“More than that,” the mad engineer purred, though his own voice had gone ragged and his eyes were very dark, “I think you need me to _break you_ open.”

Loki made a stifled noise, his jaw clenching tight.

“You do,” Tony insisted.

“Tony-,” the god of mischief bit out, almost warning, but still edged with need.

“It’s what we do,” the engineer interrupted. “Last night you took me apart and shattered me, just for a while. I love that you can do that.”

Loki’s eyes snapped open; he stared and did not, or could not, reply.

Tony curled his fingers a bit further, pushed Loki’s legs further apart, and picked up the pace still further, watching those green eyes turn unfocused and grinning at the breathless moan it pulled from the god of mischief. “You like it when I pull you apart, when I break you. It proves your sharp edges don’t cut me, or even if they do, I kind of like it.”

“Fuck,” Loki hissed, then digressed into half-coherent Norsk under his breath, but he didn’t look away.

“Close, aren’t you?” Tony purred. “Just my fingers, and just my words. And I can break a Lie-smith.”

Loki lost control of the words and sounds that escaped him for a few long moments, each less coherent than the last. Part of him wanted to resist, but holding the mad engineer’s gaze, feeling Tony’s hands––one gripping at him possessively, the other taking him without mercy––work him, and feeling something warm and aching in his chest start to crack him from within: Loki couldn’t summon the lie that he didn’t want and need this. He grinned, fierce and unflinching and stubborn even as he felt himself falling apart, “ _Your_ Lie-smith,” he panted.

Something cracked in Tony then, too, and he pressed in closer, his hand leaving Loki’s knee to instead grasp the side of his neck, pulling him in close enough Loki almost couldn’t focus properly on his face. “ _My_ Lie-smith,” he confirmed, in a low growl. “Now break.”

And Loki did, surging up to catch Tony’s mouth with his despite the creak of protesting metal overhead. He gave a low cry into the kiss as his release struck him, and felt Tony breath it in, pulling it from his lungs at the same time. Tony’s hand didn’t stop, kept pushing, kept taking until the god of lies was boneless and plaint, and might have slid off the table to the ground if not for the handcuffs and Tony’s arm now locked around his waist. Then Tony got a clean shop rag from a shelf under the table and wiped off his hand, and most of Loki’s come. “Think you can turn around?” he inquired casually.

The god of mischief opened his eyes, but only a little, his eyelids feeling a bit heavy. He hadn’t quite gotten his breath back, but managed to raise an eyebrow.

“I never said we were done,” Tony purred, unbuckling his belt, removing it, and tossing it aside. “Turn for me.”

With an effort, his eyes still half-closed, Loki did so, feeling the chain between each handcuff twist, keeping his arms and his back straight, while his hips rested against the edge of the work table. He relaxed a little as Tony’s hands smoothed across his shoulders, down his back, and then around his sides to settle at his waist. Loki sighed softly when Tony kissed him between his shoulder blades. Then he heard the sound of clothing being cast off, and felt Tony press closer, his mouth now at the side of the god of mischief’s neck.

“Now let’s see about making you scream,” he said softly, and let his well-prepared cock slide into Loki’s body slow and unhurried.

Loki canted his hips back a little, even as he winced at the protest from over-sensitized flesh. He ached, but gloriously, little sparks of pleasure rising from the discomfort with every movement. He made a sound not quite unlike a whimper.

“Look up,” Tony hissed. “You should see this.”

Loki did so, and felt his entire body suddenly grow flush with renewed arousal. “You’re a mad genius,” he breathed, staring wide-eyed at the array of three displays, one directly in front of him like a mirror, the left one showing them in profile, the right a view from overhead.

“I’ve been telling people that for years,” Tony said, one hand trailing down between Loki’s legs, running fingers along what he found there and hearing the god of mischief hiss. “No good?”

“I didn’t say that,” Loki managed. “Just––fuck. If you don’t move, I cannot be held responsible for the damage done to the machines currently keeping my wrists aloft.”

“Easy,” Tony soothed, quietly impressed as ever by his lover’s recovery time at times like this, and began to move, deep thrusts: unhurried, but forceful enough to have shivers running up the god of mischief’s spine. Then the engineer wrapped his hand firmly around Loki’s cock and thumbed the head, earning a surprised little cry. Tony started to ease up.

“Don’t stop,” Loki barked, though the second syllable trembled slightly. His head was spinning. “Don’t you dare stop.”

“With you, I doubt I ever really could,” Tony countered, sounding a bit less controlled himself, with Loki pushing back against him and still trembling a little in his arms. He sped up the pace, curious how much the both of them could take.

Loki’s hands gripped hard at the twisted chain between his cuffs, knuckles white. He couldn’t look away from the screens, knew Tony couldn’t either, and it made every sensation feel just that little bit magnified: seeing the force of Tony’s thrust as well as watching it, feeling an aptly obscene satisfaction when he snapped his hips back against the mad engineer and saw Tony struggle to keep his control. It didn’t take long before he felt again balanced on the knife’s edge between near-painful desperation and release. Then he noticed that repetitive sound he kept hearing was in fact his own voice, shaky and thin now, whispering, “Please, Tony, please, yes, _please_.” Because at some point Tony’s hand on his cock had gone away and he _needed_ just that much more.

Then Tony’s hand returned, freshly slick, hot and tight around him: no quarter given, jerking hard and fast.

Loki cried out, voice rough, breaking mid-sound: more than sufficient to count as a scream, and more, lower cries followed as Tony rode him hard through his climax, before finally losing control himself. Loki saw his lover’s control shatter, in high definition on the camera feed, and moaned at the acute spasm it sent through him just to watch.

And then, for a few long moments, the lab was quiet except for the sounds of labored breathing. Tony cleaned them both off with a cloth, his hand only a little shaky.

At Tony’s gesture, the machines overhead started to lower Loki’s wrists, but the god of mischief merely shrugged, muttered something and slipped free of the cuffs as though they were made of smoke. Tony then caught him about the waist as they both swayed, breathing hard. “Bed,” Tony managed.

Loki nodded, and smiled as Tony obliged, and they soon tumbled onto the mattress without bothering with any nonsense like walking. “You enjoy using that gemstone.”

“Yeah. And you enjoy me using it.” He loosened his grip a little to let Loki turn over to face him, and gave a low hum of satisfaction when the trickster’s mouth caught his, not quite chaste, but easy and warm, relaxed.

“I do,” Loki murmured. He looked Tony in the eye for a long moment, then curled a hand around the side of Tony’s neck, resting his brow on the engineer’s. “I maintain that you’re a mad genius.”

“ _Your_ mad genius.”

Loki smiled, lazy and content. “ _My_ mad genius.”

 

~~

 

Clint was very, very uncomfortable with this. And he told Natasha as much, several times, though he’d stopped when his pants had become more a source of discomfort than anything else in the room. At that point, he’d stopped talking altogether.

“And that,” Natasha said simply, “is why hacking the security feeds is often worth it.” Her face was a bit flushed and her fingers were moving against each other in that thoughtful way that Clint had learned to recognize as ‘the hint that good things are to come of a sort that will leave us both sore for days.’

The archer swallowed thickly. “Okay, fine. I can... I can see some merit to it.”

Natasha appeared in front of him, perched on the edge of the desk looking intent and creative. “You just don’t like that it’s Loki.”

“Or Stark, really, but I can admit he’s not bad at all to watch,” Clint admitted, uncomfortable.

“He’s not your type, though.”

The archer frowned. “ _Tasha_.”

She took hold of his shirt, pulled him closer. “Trust an expert, honey. Being attracted to someone physically doesn’t mean they aren’t bad people. I’ve been attracted to plenty of people I didn’t like. Not much came of it.”

“It’s not that I don’t like him, it’s what he’s done _to me_.”

“Clint,” she said, lower, firmer. “I’ve done the same, if not worse to other people, and you know it.”

“You’re different.”

“I’m still capable of it,” she said softly. “I could tear you apart and hurt you like no one else ever could, because they’re not half so creative as I am at breaking people, or as practiced.”

Clint hesitated. “You won’t.”

“I won’t.” She settled her arms around him. “And if he ever hurts you again, I’ll _find_ a way to kill him.” The assassin carded a hand through his hair. “He could do it. He could even stop me doing anything about it. That said...” She glanced at the security footage. “I’m sure he won’t.”

“You can _not_ invite him. Or Stark. Not both of them, either.”

Natasha sniggered. “I don’t want to, rest easy. Loki sets off all of the crazy alarms in my head––the ones that dampen my libido, because there’s crazy and there’s _crazy_ ––and Stark has always been like the best friend of the kid brother I never had: he had a crush on me for a while, but never stood a chance.”

Clint shot her an arch look. “Then why show me that?” He gestured at the impressively large computer monitor. “Seriously.”

“Because I wouldn’t join them, but they’re inspiring to watch, you must admit,” she purred, smiling her second-best lascivious little smile.

“However disconcertingly, I do know what you mean,” the archer admitted, and bent his head down to kiss her, feeling that smile become a little more genuine against his mouth, just for a moment, before her lips parted and the kiss deepened.

When they parted, some moments late, Natasha said innocently, “I brought handcuffs with me.”

Clint licked his lips. “Oh really?”

“They’re for you,” she said, voice full of smoke and warmth.

“Where to, then?”

She took hold of his hands, slid off the desk, and pulled him with her.

He followed.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki plays exorcist without any of the pea soup, there’s an assassin who _isn’t_ an Avenger to the dismay of many, and Loki’s plans are awesome plans. Tony Stark’s plans are also excellent. When their powers combine: this is the first batch of results.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ” _I'm sure it's clear and plain to me,_  
>  _Its not an alibi you need just yet_  
>  _Oh no, it's something for those beads of sweat._  
>  _Yes that will get you back to normal_.”
> 
> \-- Arctic Monkeys, “Dance Little Liar”

The sprawling, well-kept campus of Xavier’s Institute for Gifted Youngsters looked quite idyllic on the exterior, Loki reflected, as he appeared just inside the front gate and began to stroll up the walkway toward the main doors. He wore a well-tailored suit of charcoal grey, the jacket not as long as the suit he’d worn in Germany: more modern, but still classically elegant. His tie, the edges of his lapels, and the folded cloth in his breast pocket were all emerald green, though the tie was shot through with gold threads that were only apparent when they caught the light just so.

He carried no staff, no scepter: nothing that might be mistaken for a weapon. His magic had mostly recovered, though he had already drained most of it by his work late into the previous night, once recovered from certain events in Tony’s lab. He had managed to create sufficiently deceptive facsimiles of the three true Infinity Gems he and Tony had on hand: Power, Soul, and Space. The remaining three they did not possess, and without the originals to hold up for reference, they could not copy. The mimic of the Time gem was not copy-able itself, which Loki found moderately annoying. _Well, I wouldn’t exactly trust us with that either,_ Tony had pointed out. That was fair, but Loki hardly had to admit as much aloud.

Copying the Power gem, however, had been the most tricky, given Loki’s refusal to actually touch it. _I know myself, Tony, and you know me as well. I do not need access to that much power––not given who I am, and especially not with certain things lurking in the depths of my mind._

With that thought, Loki rang the doorbell and settled in to wait for a few moments.

A woman with long red hair and pale green eyes opened the door, and for a moment a look of disconcertion crossed her features, like she recognized him, but couldn’t recall from where. “You’re Mr. Lie-smith?”

“Yes,” Loki said, bowing his head a little. “I am.” There was something off about the woman, something foreign, unusual even for a mutant. It made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, and brought to mind the sound of crackling flames. “May I ask who you are?”

“Dr. Jean Grey,” she said, then opened the door further and shook his hand. Her hands were soft, and her grip consciously gentle in the manner of someone used to restraining themselves, and being careful with others for fear of harming them. “Do come in. The Professor is expecting you.”

Loki nodded thoughtfully, unable to shake off the feeling that there was something hidden under that frightfully genuine kindness and gentleness about the woman; although he was fairly convinced that, if there was something lurking, the lady herself was mostly unaware. He wanted to pry, but restrained himself for the nonce. “My thanks,” he said, and stepped inside, letting her close the door behind him. He turned his head instinctively when he felt someone else’s gaze on him, and struggled not to wrinkle his nose when a cloud of tobacco smoke drifted toward him.

Lurking in the doorway leading to the main hall and Xavier’s office stood a bulky man with facial hair Loki found to be in questionable taste. The man wore a leather jacket over otherwise casual indoor wear. He smoked a cigar with casual savor and wore an unimpressed expression. “What’s this one, then?” His nostrils flared a little. “Not human––mutant or otherwise.”

At that, Loki smiled, sly and charming. “Very astute of you.”

“You smell like a bit like a glacier,” Logan said simply.

“He’s Charles’ guest,” Jean said simply. “My apologies, Mr. Lie-smith-”

“Do call me Loki,” he said, with his second-most winning smile.

Jean blinked at him, seemingly surprised. “Loki, then. This is Logan, our resident source of vaguely homicidal brooding angst.”

“As though the rest of the people in this place don’t provide _every other_ flavor of brooding and angst respectively,” Logan teased back, his smile warming faintly.

“We’re off to the medical wing, Logan. He’s here to possibly help Miss Maximoff.”

Logan raised an eyebrow and looked at Loki again, casually appraising. “You met her before, Lie-smith?” He pronounced the name with the care of someone who had at some point been exposed to the mythology, but couldn’t quite recall most of the details.

“Not at all,” Loki said. “I merely have a favor to ask of Professor Xavier, and he has suggested that he may aid me if I, in turn, can aid the lady in question.”

“Isn’t ‘Loki’ some sort of viking god?” Logan asked.

Jean rolled her eyes. “Come along, please, Loki.” She started off toward one of the halls toward the back of the main entry room.

“It is indeed, Mr. Logan,” the god of lies concurred. “Notably, one descended from frost giants, in fact.” He smiled brightly, then turned and followed Dr. Grey.

Logan snorted, though his eyes narrowed a little, even as his nostrils flared again, catching lingering traces of glaciers, expensive fabrics, spices and unfamiliar herbs, and just the faintest suggestion of fresh-cut apples. “Well, that’d be a new one ever for around here.”

Loki observed the halls with casual interest, listening closely to the sounds of activity throughout the mansion: youth, laughter, occasional suggestions of mischief and mild chaos here and there, making him smile faintly. Aware of his surroundings as he was, he was slightly less surprised than Dr. Grey when a door just behind them burst open as a young mutant hit it. From further away behind the door came a string of obscenities in Russian.

What did catch Loki by surprise somewhat was the appearance of the laughing, only slightly bruised youth picking himself up off the floor. He was dark blue, with cat-yellow eyes, and a long spade-tipped tail. At first Loki thought he saw markings on the mutant’s face like his daughter’s, but then the young man ran a tridactylous hand over his cheek, smoothing down the fine fur there, and Loki blinked the illusory similarities away.

“Kurt!” Jean barked, bristling with something close to parental authority, though she was only perhaps five years Kurt’s senior. “What did you do to Piotr?”

“Just a bit of fun,” Kurt insisted, dusting himself off casually. Then he noticed Loki staring and hesitated. “Oh. Ah, so sorry.” He reached for the watch on his wrist and snapped on a holographic illusion of normalcy. “I did not mean to disturb you.”

Loki smiled, a bit more warm and sincere than the other smiles he’d so far worn in the mansion. “Worry not at all, in that regard.” He summoned a sensation of cold with some effort, until he felt the familiar subtle changes in his own skin texture indicative of a shift toward Jotun appearance. The god of mischief laughed softly at the way the young mutant’s eyes widened. “You merely reminded me of my daughter.”

Kurt flicked the hologram off without appearing to think about it. He glanced at Jean and saw her looking a bit stunned, too. He smiled a bit oddly at the stranger. “Are you a mutant, too, then?”

“Not at all.” He extended a hand, his smile becoming a little more wicked when Kurt shook it.

“Kurt Wagner,” he said.

“Loki Lie-smith, Norse god of mischief and chaos,” Loki returned. He looked pointedly toward the sound of Russian cursing and the damaged door. “Good work.” He released Kurt’s hand. “Charming to meet you, but I have somewhat urgent business with Professor Xavier, I’m afraid.” He bowed slightly, and turned away, strolling down the hall.

Jean gaped at him for a moment, watching Loki’s appearance slide from Jotun back to deceptively human-like in appearance. She glanced at Kurt, who appeared to be watching her and trying not to laugh. “You,” she warned, “will be dealt with soon enough.”

Kurt’s tail drooped. “Sorry, Jean,” he said, and vanished in a puff of smoke.

Sighing, Jean soon caught up with the god of mischief before he passed the entrance to the medical wing. “You really shouldn’t encourage his pranks, you know.” Then she looked at him a bit oddly. “You’re not... you’re not _really_...”

“I most assuredly am, Dr. Grey.” He shot her a quicksilver smile.

“Remind me why Charles may think it’s a good idea to owe you a favor?” she asked carefully, her brow furrowing.

“Because he had already been in my mind. I allowed him a quick visit once before,” Loki said.

“Your mind is slippery. Half the time I can barely sense you’re even here,” Jean muttered. “Even Logan and Fury aren’t that good, and they were trained for years to be able to keep us out.”

 _Ah_ , Loki mused, _another telepath. Interesting_. “I’ve had millennia of practice, and have the advantage of magic, among other gifts.”

“Magic,” Jean repeated, sounding a bit unimpressed.

“I delved into S.H.I.E.L.D.’s files on Miss Maximoff before my arrival,” Loki mused. “She more normally goes by the appellation ‘Scarlet Witch’ does she not?”

“She does,” the redhead admitted reluctantly.

“And she seems to be capable of manipulating probability, but also of using something rather more volatile called ‘chaos magic’ per S.H.I.E.L.D.’s occult consultant.”

Jean frowned. “They have an occult... Who am I kidding? Of course they have an occult consultant.” She rolled her eyes.

“He is an old acquaintance of your Professor Xavier, actually,” Loki said. “They have collaborated on one or two world-saving projects.”

Jean stopped at a seemingly empty patch of wall, and ran her fingers over it, then pressed at a spot hidden seamlessly there. A section of wall as wide as a mini-cooper began to raise up, revealing an elevator. She gestured for Loki to step in, and followed after once he did. She typed in an numeric code on a keypad to the left of the doorway, and two metal interior doors snapped shut as the outer, concealing door started to lower. “I suppose I should be concerned that you have such easy access to classified S.H.I.E.L.D. files. For an ancient deity you must be surprisingly tech-savvy.”

“I am, but not altogether to that extent. My fiancé and the AI who runs his house aided me in that regard.”

Jean did a double-take. “Your fiancé?”

“Yes. Tony Stark.”

For a moment, Jean’s mouth was open as though she meant to say something to that, but then she shut it, looking thoroughly bemused. After a few seconds to recover herself she shot him another look, more shrewd. “I _thought_ you looked familiar. Jubilee was reading some celebrity gossip magazine––you were on the cover with him.”

Loki inclined his head momentarily in acknowledgement.

“Aren’t you sort of one of the bad guys?” Jean inquired. “God of lies and all?”

“Chaotic neutral.”

The redhead sniggered, hiding her smile behind one hand for a moment before lowering it. “Of course. What _was_ I thinking?” she deadpanned.

“What indeed,” Loki mused, just as the elevator completed its descent and the doors began to open.

“We protect our own here, keep in mind,” Jean said. “The students here are like my children, and most of the rest of the staff are my siblings and cousins in their ways. If you harm any of us, you _will_ regret it.”

“I have little doubt,” Loki agreed.

Jean nodded at him, then stepped out of the elevator.

Loki followed.

 

~~

 

Tony strolled into the gym casual as anything, completely at his ease and all but exuding confidence and an air of competence from his very pores. It was his armor for a certain type of battle: one of persuasion. His smile, sharp and gleaming, silently shouted both _trust me_ and _don’t dare get in my way_.

He aimed the smile at Steve Rogers when the super-soldier finally looked up from his usual rounds of pummeling innocent punching-bags.

“What have you done now?” Steve asked sharply.

“Nothing! Nothing at all. Yet.”

Steve’s eyes narrowed. “What do you want?”

“What does any man want?” Tony mused. “A place to call home, a person to call mine-”

“Tony. Cut the crap,” Steve said flatly.

Tony’s _trust me_ smile returned, just briefly, before he took on a slightly more serious, business-like expression, though the rest of his confidence-and-competence armor remained in place. “I wanted to talk this over with you personally, to see what you think, before I bring it up with the others, oh fearless leader mine.”

Steve considered. “Is this about your, ah... beau?”

“A bit, yeah, but there’s more to it.”

“There generally seems to be, with Loki.”

“Steve,” Tony said, quiet and serious: the businessman, the professional. _Trust me_. “This is important. I need you with me on this. I know the rest of the team won’t listen, or follow, without at least a little of your approval. You are our rock, and probably our moral compass––given you’re the only really _good person_ out of all of us, most likely. So please: just hear me out.”

At that, Steve’s expression reluctantly softened a little. “What is it?”

 _Whoever it was who said you can’t fool an honest man_ , Tony couldn’t help but think, _obviously lied._ He felt a bit bad about it, but it wasn’t fooling Steve, really. It was just omission, here and there, of a few things the Capsicle might consider unsavory or too reckless. “It’s about Thanos. And Loki, which makes it also about me.” He cleared his throat. “It may take us a while, so... care to go for a walk?”

 

~~

 

The medical wing was mostly quiet, though two people stood outside the main ward, arguing in fierce whispers. One was tall, lean of build, dressed in pale shades of green: a young man despite his silver-white hair. He was incensed, more out of worry than for justifiable reasons, speaking quickly in German, interrupted occasionally by the smaller figure before him: a woman with long brown hair, marked with two streaks of white in the front. She was not in battle uniform, but instead in motorcycle boots, tight jeans, and an elegant black turtleneck. She wore thin black cotton gloves.

Jean made a face and held up a hand to stop him, more than hesitant to interrupt, which was itself intriguing.

Loki managed to catch, and translate, enough of the argument to gather that the young man was not convinced that the young lady had any business down here. Finally, the young woman slapped him, apparently with enough force to make his head crack against the wall. Loki’s eyebrows raised.

When she spoke again, it was in English with a thick southern drawl, “You listen to me, sugar, I’ve had you in mah head, and Erik, and your sister. The difference is that I _got on_ with her. I like her a damn sight more than I’ve ever liked you, and so I’m at least a little worried about her, too. Don’t dare suggest I’m not, just because it doesn’t hit me quite so hard as it does you. Suck it up, get over yasself, and let us all help.”

“What help could _you_ possibly be?” the young man snapped back.

“I don’t know, but Charles called me down, so he must think there’s a use for me here. Now you plan to keep arguin’ with me, or you plan to let me in?” Her eyes narrowed. “You’re still slowed down by what those bastards hit you with on ya way to us, Pietro, and don’t think I don’t know it. That means I won’t have to work half so hard this time to catch you and wring your scrawny little neck.”

“Rogue,” Jean said, low and warning, but a bit more cautious than she’d been with Kurt. “You should really stop letting Logan heal you after a fight.”

“I dunno,” Rogue said, her eyes narrowing as Quicksilver lost the ability to hide how unnerved he was. “I needed it, given my powers were dampened too. I got a bit too used to invulnerability, so it was a real mess. An’ besides that, I like letting some of his anger out to scare other people.” She smiled disconcertingly.

Quicksilver lifted his hands, palms-forward, in a gesture of harmlessness and surrender. “I apologize,” he said delicately, his voice polished, accented with only a hint of something more foreign: a bit German, and bit Romani. “I had not realized that you were called here by the Professor.”

“Ya didn’t give me much chance to say so, before you started muttering things about me in German thinkin’ I wouldn’t know what you were sayin’ even though _I’ve taken ya memories_.” She snorted. “ _Dummkopf_.”

“I was under the impression your absorptions were temporary,” Pietro said.

“Depends on how hard I try to keep ‘em,” Rogue admitted. “And I had Kurt here to practice with an’ keep fluent.”

“I like her,” Loki whispered to Jean.

“Of course you do,” Jean muttered, less quietly, and led Loki closer.

The arguing pair looked up at that, seeming to notice Loki for the first time.

“Rogue, Mr. Maximoff, this is Loki Lie-smith. He’s here to see the professor, and your sister,” Jean introduced. “Loki, this is Rogue, one of the X-men; and Pietro Maximoff, Wanda’s twin brother.”

Pietro bowed slightly, but his bright eyes were wary. “Hello.”

Rogue’s sweeping up-and-down appraisal was more matter-of-fact, and a little appreciative. She extended a hand. “Good to meet you. Ya come up with that surname yourself?”

“It was given to me by others,” Loki said, accepting her handshake and mildly surprised by her obvious strength. “I rather liked it, however. I take it you came by your own appellation by similar means?”

She smiled, a little impressed. “You’re sharp.”

“And you are interesting, in your way.”

Jean opened the doors to the main ward, the walls lines with several beds a few feet apart. Toward the end lay the only bed currently occupied, Professor Xavier sitting beside it with his eyes closed and his brow heavily furrowed.

“There’s something foreign in her mind,” Jean said softly. “Something pretty impressive. Charles and I have been working in shifts to keep it contained.”

Loki nodded thoughtfully, already expanding his awareness, getting a feel for the room and anything out of place in it. As he approached Xavier and his charge, the god of mischief felt the air around him stir. His eyes narrowed. “You say she may have been looking for me?” he asked quietly.

Xavier nodded, his eyes remaining closed. “She was, though she was not aware of _precisely_ who or what you are. She asked a few too many broad, open-ended questions in her search, such as why you might be seeking out her father.”

Loki heard Pietro shift uncomfortably behind him. “Yes. Dangerous that, in certain regions of the astral plane.” He could feel faint traces of force emanating from the mind of the dark-haired young lady on the hospital bed: impressive forces, all in conflict. Her limbs, he noticed, were in restraints. “Has she said anything?”

“Nothing coherent, not in any languages with which we are familiar, except a bit of archaic Latin.”

“What was the Latin?” Loki inquired.

“It took a bit of work to translate,” Jean said. “So far as I could discern, it translated to: ‘ _Most of all it learned what couldn't be, what shouldn't be. And it gave those things names, names it wrote on indestructible pages, because a namer has mastery of the named._ ’”

Slowly, with a mixture of adrenaline and anticipation suddenly flooding his system, Loki began to smile. It was not a pleasant smile. “ _Oh._ Well, then.” He stepped closer to Wanda’s bedside and peered down at her face. He muttered a phrase and her eyes slowly opened.

“Good _afternoon_ , my little terrestrial elder god,” Loki crooned.

“What the fuck did he just say?” Rogue muttered.

Wanda’s eyes narrowed, then darkened, turning black from lid to lid. Her lips did not move, but everyone could hear the growling reply: “Sssss. Loki Silver-tongue, liar of Asgard. You trespass doubly this day.”

“Oh do I?” Loki inquired, light and airy. “So I am right in assuming that you are doubly _not alone_ in there, my dear Chthon.”

“This one has been mine since birth, and your actions have led this invader to her mind,” the growling voice responded.

“Look, I’ll tell you what I told the last person to accuse me of something like that: I can’t be blamed for every mage who tries to see what I’m up to and happens to look into an abyss that destroys their sanity and lets something else in. None of us can. _You_ least of all. You _are_ that abyss, often enough, here in Midgard.”

“I get the distinct feeling we’re missing something,” Pietro muttered.

“You an’ me both, Quickstart.”

Jean shushed them with a gesture.

Xavier had his eyes open now, watching Loki closely.

“You push too far with your impudence, trickster,” Chthon hissed, and Wanda’s head tilted, eyes wide and dark.

“You presume yourself to be above me?” Loki chuckled. “How quaint.” He leaned in close, his expression fierce and unearthly as he hissed back, “You are older and more impossible than I, the first mage of your world, the first to name that which could and should never be on this little world, and that does indeed give you power, but I am a wanderer and, as you say, a trickster. I know all of the rules, all the better to break them when it so pleases me. I have _read_ the pages you wrote before you were banished into the realm you now reside in, and from which you haunt this world like a mere ghost. Furthermore I have read the pages of _other gods like you_ , from _other_ worlds where different forms of life did crawl from the muck and into sentience.” Loki’s eyes were glowing darkest green by this point, and he could almost feel the two telepaths in the room shudder as he pulled power to him from his surroundings, twisting it up and through his nerve-endings for use. “Now then, Chthon, let me be _clear_ and _open_ with you: they knew of things that you do not, and named things you never could begin to imagine. Some of them still have not _died_ on their worlds, unlike your own sorry self. Now you, ghost of a first-mage, from your half-existence at the edge of all that is, with your scant few bastions of power still left in this one little world: you do tell me how _I_ am impudent to mock _you_.”

Wanda Maximoff’s expression became one of confusion and she snapped her eyes shut, her head lolling back and all tension leaving her muscles.

Loki’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, and wounded pride does you no good with a failed demigod knocking at your door with an Infinity Gem battering ram, I suppose.”

“He seeks you out,” Wanda said, in her own voice, eyelids fluttering. “He provoked Chthon, and they won’t _stop_ ,” she snapped.

Loki rested a hand over hers, murmuring a spell.

Wanda relaxed entirely, ceasing to fight, and settled back as though sleeping heavily.

“What did you do?” Pietro demanded.

“Put a little barrier in place. It won’t last; however, I subdued her mind and have temporarily shielded it from the others––she does need that respite, however brief. Your sister has held out very admirably, but her impressive willpower was becoming strained,” Loki said. “Without will, we magicians have nothing at all: not even our selves.”

“What has taken her over, Loki?” Xavier inquired.

“Well, I admit, this is more complicated than I first anticipated,” Loki mused, never taking his eyes off of Wanda’s face, clearly waiting for some change, some sign. “You never mentioned she was already the avatar of an elder god of a chaotic sort. Chthon and I never did get on, but the elder gods of earth always struck me as just _uncivilized_. And half-dead elder gods are always pretentious like you wouldn’t _believe_.”

“Charles,” Rogue asked innocently. “What am I doin’ here?”

“I think you are here to stop me if I do anything too terribly dangerous or suspicious,” Loki said brightly, then spared a glance at the professor. “Am I correct?”

Xavier sighed. “You’re not wrong.”

“I dunno if I want that one in my head, pretty as he may be,” Rogue muttered.

“Rest assured, dear Rogue, my mind is not a safe place to plunder. You may well bite off _far_ more than you can chew,” Loki said, his voice oddly gentle. “I say that because I live here and it’s not pleasant, on many days, or I wouldn’t be inclined to ask a favor from Professor Xavier in the first place.”

Jean’s eyes narrowed. “Part of that is a lie.”

“Not really. Just a key omission,” Loki said.

“I don’t make those distinctions,” Jean scathed.

At that, the god of lies turned and glared at her in blatant disbelief. “Why you primitive heathen!”

Jean looked at once bewildered and mildly outraged.

Just then, however, Wanda’s arm snapped up, breaking her restraints, and she closed her hand around Loki’s throat. The god of mischief turned his head a bit to look down his nose at the creature staring out through her eyes: glowing blue with strange swirls of black this time. “I was wondering when you would join us.”

“ _Betrayer!_ ” growled the low, guttural voice.

Loki winced at the sharp pangs of pain from his mental shields. “Xavier. I may need your help, here. Infinity Gem or no, he’s too distant to manage to harm one such as you. I myself, however, lack that particular advantage.”

“ _I gave you power, and knowledge, and purpose!_ ” Thanos growled.

“You did,” Loki acknowledged, his tone very light and airy, as though there weren’t fingers clamping around his his throat just below the hyoid bone. He was able to relax a bit further when he felt the pressure on his mind let up, with Xavier’s aid.

“ _You owe me a debt! Even the god of lies can be bound by a deal, or by a debt._ ”

“Oh, of course I can,” Loki said innocently. “But you never _offered_ me one of those. You offered commands, and gifts, and a smattering of uniquely awful torture. That’s very little incentive for me to tell you anything such as ‘by the way, you forgot to make me give you my _word_.’ Don’t you think? Ignorance of the rules does not make the rules more bendable for you: quite the opposite, in fact.”

Far away, the demigod snarled, and it echoed across space to play through the conduit of one Scarlet Witch. “ _You will be taught humility, little god_.”

“Oh, I have already learned that,” Loki warned, low and dangerous. “Why else do you believe your dear lady asked you not to warp me as you do the rest under your command, with your little toy gemstone: she wanted me for herself.”

The other restraint broke, but this time Loki caught her wrists before her hand could reach further, and pulled the already squeezing hand free from his throat. “ _I know more of you now, from this witch. She has been keeping track of you, since she was given your image and part of your name. She knew far more than the enchantress about where your_ heart _lies._ ”

Loki felt his internal organs begin to feel like the contents of a cement mixer and his expression quickly smoothed to an unreadable mask. His voice was low, polite, and very dangerous, “You would do well to beware what promises you offer, and who you dare to threaten, Thanos. You are a failed usurper on a cold and distant world, and I have had a good deal of time to consider means by which to destroy you.”

“ _My lady has resurrected me before_.”

“Not this time, I do not think,” Loki whispered, his voice like the ominous crack of ice underfoot in the middle of a frozen lake. “What Death does desire, Death conquers.”

“ _I have had time as well, little god, to contemplate fetching that which I have conquered._ ”

Loki snorted. “You never conquered me. Your lady fooled you into believing that you had.”

“ _Then I shall remedy that, by usurping the force that has conquered your heart._ ”

“If you’re quite done with your frankly _paltry_ threats,” Loki shot back, and reached out with something of his own: the Soul gem, tapping into the part of Thanos that clung to Wanda Maximoff’s mind, and starting to trace it back to its source. He began to pull.

Wanda screamed, and it was not just Thanos’ voice.

Loki’s eyes glowed green again as he crossed her arms over her chest and held her down with them. “ _Do well not to challenge those who know your tricks_ _already,_ ” Loki snarled.

Caught unawares, Thanos retreated before his soul could quite be pulled out of him, and Wanda fell quiet.

Breathing hard, Loki leaned down. “Chthon, I believe you too currently possess a soul of your own, other than Miss Maximoff’s. If you wish to keep it, I recommend you surrender her as well,” he said, loud enough for the others to hear, then, more quietly whispered, “at least so far as you left her independent before. No more, no less than you had before Thanos’ meddling.” He lifted his head then, meeting the witch’s once more jet-black eyes. “Do merely that much, and I will spare you today,” Loki said flatly.

“Understood, God of Lies,” Chthon hissed. Then the unnatural coloration faded from Wanda’s eyes, and when Loki let her go, straightened up, and reversed his previous spell they opened wide and she shouted at him to go away.

Loki stood up straight, hands raised with palms forward and stepped back. “Are you alright, Miss Maximoff?” he asked politely.

She stared hard at him for a few long moments, breathing unevenly. “You,” she growled, pointing an accusing finger at him. “You _started_ this mess.”

“You asked the wrong questions of the wrong otherworldly creatures on the astral plane,” Loki bit back sharply. “The fact you happened to be seeking _me_ out while displaying that sort of incompetence as a magic-user does not make the catastrophic end results any direct fault of mine.”

“Is that what you tell yourself in order to sleep at night?” Wanda riposted. “How many have you ruined like this?”

“Only two so far like this, and do _not_ mistake me for merely human, Miss Maximoff. I’ve both seen and done far worse, and lost comparatively little sleep for it. Furthermore, I’ve seen and reluctantly hosted worse creatures than those who possessed your mind tonight, knowledge of which might crack your fragile sanity to learn of,” Loki said dangerously. “Be very grateful that I did not make use of _those_ in order to frighten those others out of your head.”

Wanda’s eyes narrowed. Hesitantly, she asked, “Even Chthon?”

Loki’s eyes flickered, bright and knowing. “He will bother you no more now than ever he has before,” he said, in warm and reassuring tones he had long ago perfected when trying to calm Sigyn during an argument. He was not aiming that reassurance at Wanda, however, and from the expression of mixed wariness and relief on her face, he knew she was aware of it. “Your powers should recover accordingly.”

At that, Wanda nodded. “Then I thank you... Loki.”

Lowering his arms from their prior position, the god of mischief folded them across his chest and bowed his head a little. “You have Xavier to thank. He requested I do this, and will aid me in return.”

“Yeah, Charles, for future reference––you know I respect you, and appreciate you, but I wouldn’t want that guy in mah head,” Rogue deadpanned. “Or did you just want me to smash his head through the wall?”

“I planned to leave that up to your expert judgement, Rogue,” Xavier countered, just as calm and matter-of-fact.

“Your faith in me is most heartening,” Loki said.

Wanda startled, seeming to notice the rest of them with some dismay, until she met her brother’s gaze and relaxed. “Pietro.”

He darted over to her bedside in the blink of an eye.

Loki’s eyebrows raised. To Rogue he said, “And that is with his speed diminished?”

“Usually there would’ve been a slight crackin’ noise from him briefly breakin’ the sound barrier,” Rogue assured.

“Interesting.”

Xavier watched Wanda and her brother speak quietly to each other, looking like scared children recently reunited with each other after a long ordeal. “Rogue, will you please take Mr. Lie-smith to my office? We have a few matters to discuss with Wanda and Pietro. Mr. Lie-smith, if you will be so kind as to wait, we can discuss the favor I now owe you.”

The twins looked up with identical expressions of wary concern.

Rogue nodded, and reached over to tug Loki’s jacket-sleeve. “C’mon, sugar.”

Loki nodded to the twins, and Jean, smiled briefly at Xavier, and then followed Rogue out of the ward. Once the door shut behind them, he inquired, “Precisely how strong are you, Miss Rogue?”

“Just Rogue,” she corrected lightly. “And I’m strong enough to tear a car in half, courtesy of a lady named Carol Danvers.” She smiled sweetly. “My skin did it, you see. I don’t have control of it. When I touch someone, it takes all that they are: powers if they have ‘em, their mind and memories, and––if I hold on long enough––their life. Carol was _very_ strong, let’s say.”

“Emphasis on ‘was’ I presume,” Loki murmured.

Rogue nodded. “Yep. Wasn’t pretty. Still gives me nightmares, really.” She looked at him a bit shrewdly as she followed him into the elevator. “What have you got in _your_ head?”

“A number of things that shouldn’t be there. Unpleasant sort of things. The one person I fully explained them to compared them to the writings of someone called Lovecraft, I think.”

Rogue gave a thoughtful hum. “I’ve read some of him. ‘Crawling chaos’ sorta thing?”

“I’m the god of chaos. I make a point of not spending much time ‘crawling.’”

“So more... eldritch writhing unspeakable horror things?”

Loki raised an eyebrow. “That’s... actually quite appropriate.”

“Charming,” she deadpanned.

“Oh, infinitely.”

She smirked. “Y’know, I’ve seen your face somewhere before. Magazine, I think. How many people know you’re some sorta... well, know what and who ya really are: god of lies and such?”

“All of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s top agents, the Avengers, Dr. Strange, and now a few of the X-men,” he listed. “Also one or two employees of Stark Industries.”

Rogue’s eyes lit up. “ _That’s_ where I saw you! Now I remember! Oh, hell, I can’t believe––wow. You an’ Iron Man?”

Loki looked mildly uncomfortable at getting such an inexplicably enthusiastic reaction. “Yes, actually.”

“Now that sounds like a helluva story. Jubilee will try to kill me when she finds out you were here,” she sighed.

“Whatever for?”

“She spends too much time on Tumblr.”

Loki tilted his head. “On what?”

“It’s an online thing. You have fans, you know.” She sniggered at the disturbed and slightly perplexed look on his face. “Think of it like when people used to worship you, except they all probably want to sleep with you, and they write blogs insteada sagas. And they pray to _other_ gods in the hopes you’ll wind up sleepin’ with ‘em.”

“Worshippers were generally inclined to sleep with gods back then, actually, so that part isn’t _as_ unusual.”

“You got a cult following, kinda, since there’s still been no real press about who you are or where you came from,” Rogue mused. “Though some hacker found some of your info: just driver’s license, that sorta thing, nothin’ major. So ‘Luke Lysmthe’ has a major following online now. Jubes keeps going on about it. And on. And on.” She rolled her eyes. “We share a room, she and I. It’s never boring, at least.”

“This person sounds deeply disturbed,” Loki said.

“You’re one to talk.”

“Touché.”

“You’re not curious about what they’re sayin’?” Rogue asked innocently.

“Rumors are useful to be aware of. And I am a bit morbidly curious, yes.”

“I could tell her you’re here. Once she gets her jaw off the floor she’ll be a font of information about what the internet thinks of you and Iron Man.”

Loki considered. “Another day, perhaps.”

“Fair enough,” Rogue said, smirking.

“Do you have an online following, as well?”

She winked at him. “I fly around in a skin-tight bodysuit with curves like this an’ you think I _don’t_ catch the attention of people with cameras and a tendency to share pictures on the internet?”

Loki looked her over head to toe appraisingly. “I see your point.”

She raised her eyebrows. “You’re bi, then?”

“I’m myself,” Loki said simply. “I do as I wish, independent of whatever distinctions humanity seems so inclined to make in recent years.”

Rogue sniggered.

“What?”

“Just... there’s a picture Jubes showed me.” She bit her lip. “You do what you want. Clearly,” she said, sounding deeply amused.

“The more I hear of this, the more I believe that humans are by nature all insane.”

“Of course we are. We have to be to survive for long in a world like this.”

“The world you’ve made for yourselves you mean?”

“Yeah: millions of people, hundreds of generations, each building more stuff on top of the last and every last one of them was fucked up in the head,” Rogue confirmed. “Jubes and Tumblr are just the newest beta version of crazy.”

“And you?”

“An adaptive version of Linux, I guess.”

“... The operating system?”

Rogue raised an eyebrow at him. “How old are you?”

“As old as my tongue, and a little older than Christianity.”

She laughed at that. “How the hell do you know what Linux is?”

“I fell in love with Tony Stark,” Loki deadpanned. “Technology is not foreign to me, and especially not operating systems. Magic is just another variety of programming: hacking bits of reality. Didn’t you know?”

The elevator doors slid open.

“Y’know, Loki, I think I like you just fine, for a posh lunatic.”

“Thank you, Rogue.”

“Charles’ office is this way.”

“If I may ask...”

“Hm?”

“Your accent fades slightly whenever you mention Xavier,” Loki said. “Why is that?”

She made a thoughtful sound. “You know how I told Pietro I’ve been in his head, and Wanda’s, and Erik’s?”

“Ah,” Loki said, “You meant _Erik Lehnsherr_.”

“That’s the one,” Rogue confirmed. “And he’s crazy as a bastard on father’s day, but he’s got good taste, and he’s not a bad conversationalist.” She shot him a wink. “So I kept a few things I happened to like.”

“Such as speaking German?”

“And playing the piano.”

Loki smirked. “I was right in my initial appraisal of you, I think,” he said, as they stopped outside Xavier’s office.

“Oh?” She opened the door for him and gestured for him to enter.

“You’re quite interesting.” He bowed his head and stepped inside.

“Thanks, sugar.”

“If you tell Miss Jubilation Lee that I am here, however, I will not hesitate to make your life quite miserable before I leave,” he added, with a charming smile.

Rogue nodded. “I had a feelin’. You sit tight awhile. Charles should be done with the wonder twins soon enough.” She closed the office door and walked away down the hall, laughing quietly now and then.

 

~~

 

Without such an impressive power source as the Tesseract, sending even a single parcel, a single being, from Thanos’ world to one so distant as Earth was no easy task. That said, Thanos was never incapable of achieving impressive feats despite vast odds against him. And so he sent someone he could trust to hunt down a certain deity, but only after destroying that deity’s lover.

The best part, Thanos always thought, about meddling with the flow of time when he’d had the opportunity, had been the assassin he had gained out of it. He had raised her, improved her with cybernetic implants similar to his own, and trained her himself in the arts of battle. Were he a creature with more heart, an less ruthless ambition, the girl Gamora might have been as a daughter to him. Instead, she was his knight.

It would be interesting, to put her into play once more. The means by which she would travel unfortunately ruled out a stealthy, subtle entrance onto the scene, but there was more to sending her than merely what he told her he wanted. No plan was complete without two or more other plans embedded within it, to Thanos’ mind.

Tall and strong, with fine features and sage-green skin, Gamora smiled when he explained her tasks to her, and raised her sword: a powerful blade called _Godslayer._ “Oh good,” she said. “I’d been growing weary of having no one really _interesting_ to kill.”

 

~~

 

“You want us to wage a war,” Steve summarized.

“Well. Sort of.”

“I thought you were done with that sort of thing.”

“I never _started_ any wars,” Tony snapped sharply.

“Fine. I thought _Loki_ was done with that sort of thing.”

“He is. This war is sort of on its way already. If anything, what started it was S.H.I.E.L.D. making waves in the cosmos by screwing around with the Tesseract. That’s why they sent Loki here with that army in the first place.”

“And we haven’t heard from them in what, two years?”

“They’re a long way away, and without their little infinite-potential-energy battery to toy with, they’ll have been looking for other means to get here: things closer to home.”

“You really think they would come here?” Steve asked. “Are you that paranoid?”

“Amora was under Thanos’ influence. She still is. Even Odin can’t get that guy out of her head, I checked while we were there,” Tony said. “He didn’t even have to _travel_ to get his claws into her.” He sighed. “And he did the same to Scarlet Witch.”

Steve stopped in his tracks. “What?”

“Yeah, I know: the _one_ in the brotherhood who _isn’t_ a dick,” Tony muttered.

“How do you know this?”

“Loki’s off to help out the head of the X-men on it. You’ve heard about that guy: like a bottomless well of mercy and good will.”

“‘Help’?” Steve asked, using air quotes for emphasis.

“He wants something Xavier can offer, and he doesn’t go back on his word when he makes a deal. It’s an Asgard thing: compulsive, rather than based in a genuine desire to follow through. It’s not something he can prevent without self-harm.”

Steve sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. “Okay. Okay. So Thanos is sending the occasional agent, or brainwashing them, or whatever-”

“Consistently he seems to aim for moderately powerful magic users,” Tony added. “How they caught and restrained Scarlet Witch I’d kind of like to know. She must’ve been pretty messed up to start, I would think-”

A loud crack, not quite like an explosion, sounded off about a block away.

“What was-” Steve started, then cut off as the aftershock from whatever it was shook the whole street for a few seconds. “Not good.”

“Very not good,” Tony agreed.

“You need your suit for this.”

“I’m tougher than I was, and walking around with you, I’ve learned to be prepared.” He pulled two heavy metal objects from his coat pockets. “Activate, hasty, please, JARVIS.” The heavy devices unfolded around his hands and up his arms, forming familiar looking gauntlets. “Shall we?”

“If it’s too bad, you’d better fuck off and go get your suit,” Steve bit out.

Tony smirked a little. “Aww, I know you care when you're swearing before the fight's even started.”

The super-soldier rolled his eyes. “Shut up. Come on.”

“I’m a terrible influence,” Tony deadpanned, but took off running after him. He pulled out his phone briefly. “JARVIS? Activate the freshly anti-magic Mark VII, reset homing beacon to the travel gauntlets rather than the bracelets. Also: let the Avengers know we’ve got a problem, and to bring Cap’s shield.”

“Right away, sir.”

Once they rounded their second corner, headed for the source of that ominous noise, they found a very empty street, mostly because the traffic that would normally have filled it seemed to have been blasted away, and was now crushed up against the nearest buildings, which were looking a bit scorched themselves.

Strolling casually from the center of that blast radius was a tall, clearly not-human woman with generous cleavage on display despite otherwise wearing some sleek, impressive-looking armor: a bit more space-age than Asgardian in style. She carried a large sword two thirds as long as she was, as though it weighed no more than a cardboard tube.

Tony’s wacky coincidence sensors went off. “What are the odds, you think, that this is about to prove my point?”

Steve shot him a glare. “Just stay here and cover me, alright?” he whispered, and climbed over the nearest badly-damaged car to stroll out into the street. “Hello, Miss?”

Tony winced. _Lovely way to greet a warrior woman with a sword who seems to have exploded into the middle of the street._ He stripped off his heavy coat and aimed the gauntlets, waiting, and listening. “JARVIS?” he whispered.

“Arrival time estimated in two and a half minutes, sir.”

“Thanks. Also: make homing beacon just the right-hand gauntlet.”

“Adjusting now.”

The woman turned. Her skin was an interesting shade of sage, at contrast with her mostly-black costume with its dark purple accents. “State your name,” she demanded.

Steve halted. “Captain America, until you get to know me better.”

She smiled unpleasantly. “I am Gamora, and I am looking for a man who flies around in metal armor. I believe his name is Anthony Stark.”

“Sometimes I hate it when I’m right,” Tony muttered under his breath.

“Well, I can’t say I’ve seen him arou-HEY!” He dodged an abrupt swipe from her blade. “Take it easy!”

“A mere mortal would not have been able to dodge that,” Gamora mused. “You’re _interesting_ , Captain America.”

“And you’re hostile. Nice to meet you. Well, sort of,” Steve managed, dodging another few swiped of her sword. “I could use a _bit of help!_ ”

Promptly, two repulsor blasts went off, hitting Gamora square in the chest and sending her flying backwards.

“Took your sweet time!” Steve shouted.

Tony darted from cover. “Catch, Cap. I set it to easy mode: point and shoot.” He tossed the left gauntlet to the super-soldier.

“What––Tony what are you-”

“Waaait for it!” the mad engineer interrupted. “Aaand...” The Mark VII appeared overhead, and promptly aimed itself at Tony. “There we go,” he managed, before the suit abruptly expanded and engulfed him, still changing shape as it did. Tony barely managed to strip off and drop the right-hand travel gauntlet in time to prevent the two bits of armor clashing.

Steve made a face and picked it up. “You have way too much time on your hands, designing all this.”

“I don’t hear you complaining when it saves your star-spangled buttocks, Sunshine.”

Putting on the second gauntlet as Gamora pulled herself from the pile of scrap metal that had formerly been a minivan, Steve said, “She’s after you, by the way.”

“I heard.” Tony braced himself as the woman launched herself at them. “Damn she’s fast!” He tried to dodge using the suit’s flight capabilities and fell short, feeling and hearing the squeal of shredding metal across one shoulder. And on the backhand she managed to use it to deflect a repulsor blast from Captain America. “Shit!” Then he vanished.

Gamora looked momentarily puzzled. “What-”

An impressive amount of metal crashed down on her from just overhead: the elbow of the Iron Man suit slamming into the back of her skull. She cried out and rolled away, leaping to her feet like a startled cat. “What the hell _are_ you?”

“Gifted. In many ways,” Tony shot back. His good shoulder panel lifted, and fired a series of micro-missiles.

Gamora managed to avoid most of them with some astonishingly clever blade-work, but still wound up a bit scorched. She launched herself at him and if he’d been moving at the speed he had been before, she would have gutted him, but instead he was simply _gone_ again. And Steve’s wave of repulsor blasts caught her while she was off-balance.

She cried out, then abruptly stopped as a heavy metal arm wrapped around her neck, putting her in a pretty effective headlock. “You’re not _human!_ ”

“Actually I am. Like I said, though: gifted,” Tony countered, forcing her to drop the sword. He then took to the air, putting distance between them both and the ground fast.

Gamora’s struggled increased, then stopped once he changed angle enough to let her see how far off the ground they were. She swore at great length.

“Now. Who sent you?”

“If your lover is half so honest with you as you might hope, you might actually know already,” she shot back.

Tony’s grip tightened, just enough to cut off her air for a bit, then relaxed again. “So, what you mean to say is-” He switched to an annoying falsetto voice: “‘I’m so sorry, Mr. Stark. It’s that evil Thanos guy. He’s a real downer.’”

She swore at him further, in a language he didn’t recognize at all.

“Is there anything I can say or do that’d make you change your mind about killing me or Loki?” he asked, in insultingly conversational tones.

“Not in this life,” she snarled.  
“Well, that’s not much incentive for me not to drop you.”

Gamora hesitated. “I... see.”

“Except that I’m _curious_ ,” Tony said, low and dangerous. He activated the comm and put external voice system on mute. “Hey Cap?”

“You have her handled there, Tony?”

“Yeah. I’ll get her to S.H.I.E.L.D. in a blink.”

“Yeah, about your vanishing act...”

“Long story. I’ll let you know at the inevitable debriefing.” He switched mute off. “Now, let’s get you somewhere safe.” He vanished, and reappeared in the middled of the Helicarrier’s containment section. Predictably, a lot of alarms went off and it took less than ten second for at least four people with guns to have said guns aimed at the intruders.

“Hey, fellas,” Tony shouted. “Got a fresh one for ya. You’ll need at least the Asgardian-strength cuffs for this one, I can tell.”

“I will _skin you_ for this,” Gamora hissed.

“You’re lucky I didn’t snap your neck as soon as you mentioned my lover,” Tony said quietly, as S.H.I.E.L.D. agents approached with the new, heavy-duty restraints they’d come up with since the original Loki incident. “I recommend you look for any and all small lock-picking tools, poisoned needles here and there: all of it,” he said, more loudly. “This one’s something of an assassin.”

Gamora, for her part, looked extremely put out.

 

~~

 

Loki stood at the window overlooking the gardens when Xavier rolled in.

“She is oddly fond of you, given her initial reaction upon waking,” the professor said.

“She is well, then?” The god of mischief turned to face him, his expression a mask.

“As well as can be expected,” Xavier said. “Her mind is closed to me, as it usually is. She does not trust easily.”

“I value the opinion of few who do.”

“Hardly surprising,” Xavier said, smiling very faintly. “What is it you would ask for my aid in?”

“I need to fix some of the lingering damage from the anchor’s removal. It aches, more than I am comfortable with. I had hoped there was little left there for it to harm, but the nature of the means by which it was removed...” He shook his head. “Also, I have several memories I need to conceal from myself, for a time. I need them locked away in such a manner that I will know who has done the locking, even if I do not know why.” He stepped forward. “Lastly, is the most tricky matter of them all, and the most difficult to explain.” He took a breath. “There are _things_ in my mind not native to it. They are instead native to certain parts of the _void_ between worlds, perhaps even between universes. They are unnatural, and they _writhe_ through my psyche like worms through an apple. I would subject no one to them: not even those I hate, and I am the sort of creature who hates without even the smallest iota of mercy or remorse.” He tucked his hands into his pockets. “If you think yourself able, without endangering your own mind, I would like to build a box in which to contain them––not forever. Just for a while. I have some... very specific designs in mind.”

Xavier considered, looking Loki over. “You would entrust me to walk through the halls of your mind to hunt them?”

“I do not trust easily, Charles Xavier,” Loki said simply. “I am a trickster, a liar, a cheat and many other things. I can recognize falsehood quicker than I can recognize the difference between two colors. That said, I trust you not to steal from my house, or take what I do not freely offer while you are in my mind.” He narrowed his eyes. “The falsehoods I do see about you are well-maintained, well thought-out, and masterfully handled, but they are also remarkably _benign_ in most cases. You are that rarest of creatures in the world: a vastly powerful man, but also a good one.”

Xavier swallowed tightly, unaccustomed to being so easily read, especially by someone who was not even a telepath. “You’re very astute, Mr. Lie-smith.”

“It comes with the territory,” Loki said, low and calm. “Will you help me?”

“For what you have done for Miss Maximoff, and the lack of hostility or ill intent you have shown to those in my care: yes, I will help you.”

Loki bowed, an arm across his chest in Asgardian fashion. “My sincerest thanks.”

“That rather damns your thanks with faint praise,” Xavier countered.

The god of lies and mischief smiled broadly. “It is true nevertheless.” He straightened. “Where shall we start?”

Xavier gestured toward a nearby couch. “Lie back, if you will.”

The consummate performer, Loki did not appear at all nervous or concerned as he settled in, his head resting on the arm of the couch. He did not even twitch when he felt Xavier’s cool fingers press against his temples.

“Relax, please,” Xavier said, still able to feel all that lurked behind that well-crafted mask, especially now.

“Just a moment.” Loki took a deep breath, ignoring the myriad instincts screaming at him that this was wrong, that letting anyone in was wrong, dangerous, and overall a terrible idea. He exhaled slowly. _Necessity_ , he thought, folding his hands over his stomach, his thumb brushing across the ring on his left hand. He began to pull back his cloak of mental shields and wards, opening it further this time, with fewer obscuring shadows in certain corners.

He heard Xavier suck in a breath, and then they were no longer in an office at an institute for “gifted” youngsters, but in the lie-smith’s mind. There was an unpleasantly scratching, scraping sound from somewhere not far enough away: the sound of unnatural limbs writhing through the support structures of Loki’s psyche.

“Lead on,” said Xavier’s voice in his ear, and Loki felt a sinking, shuddering unease.

“The memories first. They’re all quite fresh.” He led Xavier to them, flipped through them: images of glowing gemstones, and the hum of powerful knowledge.

“What are they?” Xavier asked.

“Perhaps one day I shall tell you,” Loki murmured. “For now, I must not even know the true nature of this particular fresh one myself. The other copies, fine, but this one...” He separated out the Time gem. “I need to believe it to be genuine. Of the means by which I acquired it, and learned to replicate the copying process on the other stones, I need to leave only breadcrumbs: symbols I alone would use to seal up such things, so that I don’t go digging until I can be sure that my work is done.”

Something skittered, sounding like it had far too many legs, jointed and scratching and prickling. It seemed to come from somewhere far below them. It brushed past something that caused an audible creak in the floor beneath their feet.

“Is that...”

“Yes,” Loki said. “It’s only truly bad when things get too quiet. Otherwise I can ignore them. I try not to imagine what they do while I’m not watching, however.”

Xavier seemed disconcerted by that.

“I _did_ warn you,” Loki said softly.

“You did. And I am more determined now to help you contain them.”

The god of chaos smiled, crooked and self-deprecating. “That’s sweet of you, but you know it won’t last.”

“What would?”

“Another deal I’ve made. Until that comes to fruition, however, keeping them in this box,” he summoned the plans with a thought, and placed them in the ghostly hands of Xavier’s astral form, “will serve more than one purpose.”

Xavier examined the plans closely, and began to look around Loki’s mind, at how carefully some areas seemed constructed. It looked more spartan than his last visit. “You have made it look as though you are hiding something. Something terrible. It was not at all like this before. How did you know how a mind like that looks from the inside?”

“Research. Talking to other telepaths over the centuries. Briefly winding up with the power myself in a bizarre accident many years ago––not an experience I wish to repeat, honestly.” He turned and looked at Xavier, then. “You still don’t get it do you? What I’m planning with that box?”

“No,” the telepath admitted.

“I was talking to my brother, who has a bizarre fascination with Midgard’s television programs aimed at immature audiences, children particularly. For what it’s worth, it seems to aid him in learning more of the culture and being less of an ass in public.” He cleared his throat. “That aside, he told me briefly of a Midgardian fable he once heard from one such program.” He was smiling viciously now. “I must admit that I was impressed by it: a simple lesson, one which I already knew, but to hear it in a children’s story here did surprise me.”

“You do not truly plan to tell me.”

“No. I’m inclined to see if you can guess, before we’re done.”

“If I cannot?”

“Then I will have the advantage, should we ever be on opposing sides. I live a very long time, you must understand, and I am dishonest. I must keep hold of whatever I can possibly use, even against people I otherwise like.”

“What of those you love?” Xavier inquired idly.

Loki paused. “I notice less. I do not notice when I store information about them which may be of use against them. I do not notice it––sometimes not until I have let slip and cut them open by accident. I try not to, however, with rare exception.” He turned and faced Xavier. “Let’s begin, shall we?”

 

~~

 

Tony was still in his armor, sitting at the big debriefing table in the helicarrier and eating a green apple, when the rest of the Avengers walked in, along with Nick Fury.

“So, guys. Thanos sent an assassin to kill me today. And how are you all?”

Natasha sat beside him, looking at the damaged shoulder of his suit, and the rest of him, in a shrewd, appraising manner. “Seems she wasn’t a terribly good assassin.”

“I had a few advantages she wasn’t expecting,” Tony admitted.

“Like your sudden ability to teleport?” Steve said, sitting on his other side and glaring at him a bit. “Useful sort of trick.”

Bruce and Clint joined them at the table, Fury remained standing.

“Well,” Tony said, coughing quietly behind a hand, “It’s pretty complicated.”

“Did you––Tony, did you take one of Strange’s trinkets?” Natasha inquired.

Tony made a face. “Well, okay, so it won’t be too complicated to explain to her,” he corrected. “Apparently.”

“That’s pretty rich, actually,” Clint muttered. “How’d you manage that?”

“I may have threatened to rip out his soul, but to be fair he _provoked_ me,” Tony said.

“Tony!” Steve snapped, aghast. “You did _what_?”

“Look I didn’t actually do it,” Tony coaxed. “Well. I did the once, but I put it back right after,” he insisted. “He’s fine! Absolutely fine.” He took another bite of apple. He’d taken off his left gauntlet for the sake of avoiding stickiness to clean off it later. “And to be fair,” he said, slightly rudely, then swallowed. “To be fair, is anyone else in the room actually surprised that I did that? Raise your hands!”

Steve looked around. No one had a hand raised. “You people are insane.”

“This is why you’re our moral compass, Capsicle,” Tony assured.

“We have a moral compass?” Bruce inquired, shocked.

Tony jerked his head in Captain America’s direction.

Bruce considered. “Okay, yeah, I can see that.”

“See, Cap? It’s clear to everyone here.”

“This assassin,” Fury interrupted, “is directly from the man you and Loki have mentioned before, Stark. How sure are you he’s an enemy of earth itself, and not just you and the god of chaos?”

“Honestly?” Tony said, gesturing vaguely. “I think they guy’s a bit nuts, and that even if you sent Loki and I to him chloroformed and gift-wrapped, he’d still eventually drop by earth to go after the rest of us, maybe find a few more shiny and super-powerful trinkets.”

“You know of any of those ‘trinkets’ Mr. Stark?” Fury inquired.

“Maybe,” Tony said innocently, and finished his apple in two bites, setting the core upright in the middle of the table.

“Even if he does,” Clint said, “I think it’s safe to say we should leave them where they are, rather than bring any attention to ‘em.”

“Perhaps,” Fury said, narrowing his eye at Tony thoughtfully. “What’s this about you teleporting place to place, Stark?”

“Well,” Tony said quietly, and vanished. The Avengers stared at his chair for a long moment, then startled in unison when he appeared behind Fury and said, “It’s a little thing I took from your occult consultant.” He was disconcerted that Fury didn’t even flinch, but just turned slowly to glare at him. “One of the Infinity Gems, if that rings a bell.”

“He mentioned them, and mentioned he’d been _entrusted_ with one,” Fury confirmed.

“Well, then I think that the ones who did the entrusting there may have had a lapse in judgement similar to the one he made that let me take it, don’t you think?” Tony mused.

“What is it capable of, other than giving you the ability to perform vanishing acts and other parlor tricks?” Fury inquired.

“It has a primarily visual interface––which is nice, the other gems I’ve test-driven are significantly less savvy––and can affect the position, trajectory, and momentum of moving objects, as well as allow teleportation, the manipulation of small wormhole-like gateways between dimensions, and generally mess with gravity a bit, but I’ve not tested that too much yet. I just haven’t had the time.”

“What do you plan to do with this gem, Mr. Stark?” Fury asked, mock-innocent.

“Study it. Play with it. Maybe kick Thanos’ ass with it. That sort of thing.” He shrugged. “It can mess with data traveling at different wavelengths, incidentally. Radio, wifi, satellite.” He smiled widely. “Basically, trying to take it from me might be a bad idea.”

“Conceded,” Fury admitted. “I think it may have been safer in the hands of someone with less scientific inclination, however.”

Tony frowned at him.

“The question is,” Steve said quietly, “Is this a war we want to start early?”

Everyone turned to look at him, but he stared straight at Tony. “You could use that gem to take us there, couldn’t you?”

“Yeah, I could.”

“You have anything else we might need to know about?” Clint asked.

“Two more gems,” Tony admitted. “Loki has the green one.”

“Of course he does,” Bruce muttered.

“It’s the Soul gem,” Tony added, not looking Steve in the eye.

“Loki has something capable of stealing souls?” Clint asked. “Why am I not at all comforted by this?”

“Well, it can steal, manipulate, summon, take the memories from... Not helping?”

“Not helping,” Clint agreed.

“The other one is, ah, trickier.” He smiled widely at Fury. “Mind if I take the wheel for a bit?”

“I do, Mr. Stark.”

“Pity,” Tony sighed, and Fury vanished.

Everyone stared.

“Relax, I just sent him to the cafeteria,” Tony muttered. “The other one is the Power gem. And it’s exactly what it sounds like.”

“Tesseract-esque?” Bruce supplied.

“Yeah, but less volatile. None of that messy doorway to another section of space mess, really.” He waved his bare hand vaguely. “It also supplies anyone holding it with a certain invulnerability, strength on par with mean and green when he’s feeling green, and that sort of thing. Generally, it’s something handy to hang onto in a fight.”

“And a seemingly infinite power source,” Natasha added.

“Yeah. I’m not actually inclined to keep it any more than we were inclined to keep the tesseract in the end,” Tony said gravely. “I’m willing to send it up to Asgard when we’re done with all this.”

“Will Loki agree to that?” Steve asked.

“He doesn’t even want to touch the thing, actually,” Tony said, sounding thoughtful. “He doesn’t want it.”

That earned a couple of surprised looks from around the table.

“What? Look, I had it for a while and by the end of the first day with it, I could tell it was messing with _my_ head,” Tony said. “And if I’m noticing my head being unusually large, consider what it might do to Loki.”

The round table exchanged wary looks, then got moderately distracted by the distinct sound of Nick Fury swearing as he approached from the other side of the room.

“So, we don’t mention it?” Tony suggested.

“Agreed,” sounded from the rest of the Avengers.

“Now that you’re aware what we’ve got to work with,” Tony said, “There’s one more thing in our arsenal.” He rested his more heavily armored arm on the table, ignoring Fury glaring at him from the other end of said table. “Loki made a few... copies.”

Eyebrows raised. Fury’s rage was derailed in favor of curiosity.

Tony waved a hand. “Not exact copies, but they have enough power to pass for the originals for, say, about a day of heavy fighting or something.” He tapped metal-encased fingers thoughtfully on the tabletop. “Widow, I think you armed with say, copies of the Space and Soul gems would become one of the most terrifying beings in existence.”

She considered. “I can’t say that doesn’t sound like fun, actually.”

“Hotshot, I’m thinking the best way for you to stay alive would be to get in a bit of practice with the red one.”

“The red one?” Clint asked.

“Space one is purple.”

Clint put that together. “Ah. Well.” He started to smile dangerously. “That could be fun, too.”

“Bruce, you’re wonderful, but I don’t see you needing much help, honestly,” Tony said, with as much melodrama as he could manage.

“I wouldn’t trust the other guy with any of those three options anyhow,” Bruce concurred. “No worries there.”

“Cap? You, ah... We have a copy of the red one, if you like.”

“No thanks. I’ll stick with Widow. She can get me out of anywhere I might get stuck. Otherwise, I see this working out... surprisingly well.” He made a face. “Will this happen every time you collaborate with Loki on a plan?”

Tony grinned. “It might. That said, one thing to keep in mind: we’ll need helmets.”

That got a lot of blank looks.

“Thanos has the Mind gem. Guess what _it_ does,” Tony said.

“Well, shit,” Clint muttered. “I’m out.”

“Ah-ah-ah! Hear me out.” Tony leaned forward. “Fury? You happen to know, just off the top of your head maybe, a certain super-villain with a verified fool-proof method of resisting telepathic sorts of attacks against him?”

Fury’s brow cleared. “You want _Magneto’s_ helmet.”

“I want _copies_ of it,” Tony corrected.

Fury looked thoughtful. “Xavier hasn’t been real forthcoming on that front.”

“Maybe not,” Tony said, smiling knife-like and knowing and annoying as he could. “How about Wanda Maximoff, you think?”

 

~~

 

Loki emerged from within his own mind feeling unfairly exhausted.

For his part, Xavier looked more than a little worn himself.

“My thanks,” said the god of mischief, sitting up slowly, readjusting to his physical form after a few hours of difficult exercises in the astral one. “I feel decidedly in need of a stiff drink.”

“Agreed.” Xavier reached into a nearby cabinet and pulled out two glasses, and a large bottle of exceedingly fine scotch. As an afterthought, he inquired, “You prefer ice?”

Loki smirked, and gestured at the two glasses, focusing intently for a few moments. Ice materialized therein. “Yes,” he said.

“Impressive,” Xavier said, and set both glasses on the coffee table, filling them. “The inside of your mind is a disconcerting place, Mr. Lie-smith.”

“You’ve just been in my head, professor. I think you can call me Loki.”

The telepath smiled vaguely. “Fair enough. You in turn...”

“Lovely to meet you, Charles,” the god of mischief concurred. They both then sat back, and drained their respective glasses. “That’s excellent, what is it?”

Xavier briefly explained the age and origins of that particular bottle of Scotch.

“Interesting. The wide variety of alcohols that exist on this planet is quite impressive, at times.”

They sat in companionable silence for a while longer, occasionally asking or answering one another’s questions, waiting for the astral plane’s equivalent of jet-lag to let up a bit, when there came a knock at the door.

“Come in,” Xavier called.

Jean came in. “We’ve finished our last examinations. Wanda is fine, but she has requested to speak with Loki directly.”

Loki nodded. “I had suspected she might.” He stood. “It’s been a pleasure working with you, Charles.” He extended a hand, smiling when the telepath shook it. “Good evening to you.”

“And to you,” Xavier returned, as Loki followed Jean out the door.

“She’s quite insistent, actually,” Jean mused.

“Wouldn’t you be?” Loki inquired.

“I don’t know. How could I?” she countered.

“Fair enough.” Loki stepped into the elevator, and they rode to the medical wing in silence, though he was aware of Jean watching him.

She did not follow him into the ward, for which he was grateful. Also, Wanda’s brother had settled in on one of the other beds in the ward and apparently fallen into a very deep sleep. Loki raised an eyebrow.

“He had not slept in days, while I was ill,” Wanda explained. Her accent was only a little more pronounced than her brother’s. “I owe you a debt, Lie-smith.”

“Mayhap,” Loki said.

“Your deal with Xavier is one thing,” she said, then hesitated, “Your leaving me enough connection to Chthon to retain my more powerful magics––that is a thing entirely different, I think. Not part of that. I am equally grateful for both.”

“I too am a mage, my lady,” Loki said softly. “And I have had my powers taken from me before. I did not make any promises to rob you of that.”

“Nor any to prevent their loss,” Wanda said. “Whether or not there was a deal, I feel a debt to you. I would repay it. It is my way.”

Loki nodded. “There _is_ something in which you might aid me, Miss Maximoff; although I am not sure whether it may be too much to ask.” He tilted his head. “I am going to war soon, against an enemy with powers over the mind to dwarf Xavier’s entirely. He was the one who tried to invade your mind, and who provoked Chthon.”

Wanda’s eyes widened, and she nodded.

“Your father, Erik Lehnsherr, possesses a means of blocking telepathic power, as I’m sure you’re aware,” Loki said quietly. “I give you my word that I will return it to you after twenty-four hours, by earth standards. I merely need to know how to recreate it, not use it myself. I would protect myself, and mine.” He crossed his arms over his chest, seeing her gaze drop to the ring on his finger.

Her eyes widened and she covered her mouth with one hand. “He took from my mind, then? That you and he...”

“Yes,” Loki said.

Wanda bit her lip. “It is a heavy thing you ask, Lie-smith.”

“I’m aware. I would not ask if it were not necessary.”

She looked up into his eyes, searching. “Do you truly love him?”

For just a moment, perhaps out of a moment of perverse honesty, or perhaps merely from mental fatigue, the god of lies let his mask slip. “Yes. Very much.”

She looked surprised, and a bit amazed, watching him pull that composure together again seemingly without effort. “I will help you. How may I transport it to you?”

“If you can mark out a particular seal... is there paper?”

“No.”

Loki shrugged, and summoned a sheet of parchment from the air, and a pen from his pocket. He rested it on the wall and began to draw, aware of Wanda watching over his shoulder. “It will need to be drawn first in chalk, then marked with blood at these four points.” He marked them. “Animal blood, so long as it is not congealed, would suffice, but given how little is needed––just a few drops––I personally would just use my own for convenience’s sake. Rest it here, and add a few more drops on the fifth point. Once done, I should be aware of it, and able to summon it.” He handed her the paper.

She stared at him, head tilted to one side. “You have your own summoning sigils. And your own seal. How long have you been in practice?”

Loki considered. “By rough calculation... at least two thousand years, likely rather more. Conversions between Asgard and earth years, in historical terms, get shaky after a certain point.” He gestured vaguely. “It’s rather complicated.”

Wanda blinked a few times. “You’re really _that_ Loki.”

He bowed. “At your service,” he lied, effortlessly.

“Give me a day, possibly a day and a half,” she said softly. “Xavier will not keep us here, and I already have weighty matters to discuss with my father.”

“My thanks, Miss Maximoff.” He rested a hand over hers. “Be well. And do please be more careful where you look, when you search for certain sorts of liars.”

She shivered, but nodded. “Thank you, for not taking my magic for that.”

Loki nodded. “Fare you well,” he said, and stepped away.

“And you,” Wanda said, looking curious and wary, but also a little amused. “Good luck to you and yours.” As the door of the ward closed, she added, “You will need it, I think.”

Loki heard her vaguely, and shook his head. Then his phone unexpectedly started to buzz in his breast pocket. Jean looked at him, and he shrugged. Loki pulled it out, blinked at the caller ID, and answered, “Tony?”

“ _Hey, we may have a bit of a problem, darling_.”

“How great a problem?”

“ _He sent an assassin._ ”

Loki halted in his tracks. “No.”

“ _I’m fine, she’s in S.H.I.E.L.D. custody._ ”

The god of mischief felt a fresh wave of adrenaline hit regardless: buzzing and head-clearing and sharp. “How secure?”

“ _More secure than last time you were here._ ”

“How easy was she to catch?”

“ _Not that easy. At least, she would’ve torn us up pretty good if not for the gem._ ”

Loki’s shoulders relaxed. “The longer she is there, the greater risk she may be. He does not let his pets go without anchoring their minds to his own. What is her name, do we know?”

“ _Gamora_.”

At that, Loki felt whatever the frost giant equivalent of a chill may be: not cold, but deeply disconcerting nevertheless. “That’s his personal assassin, Tony. She was practically raised by him.” He ignored the perplexed look Jean shot him at that.

“ _No major abilities like telepathy of her own, though, right?_ ”

“Not that I’m aware of. She’s someone he sends when he either cannot, or simply does not care enough to handle matters himself.” Loki’s eyes narrowed. “He would not send her without a means to retrieve her eventually.”

“ _Found that: an obvious-looking bit of tech with some crazy energy coming off it, warping space a little bit around itself. I hurled it into the sun,_ ” Tony confirmed.

Loki smiled crookedly, relieved. “You’re on the helicarrier?” His left thumb turned the ring on his finger as he focused on it, homing in on the position of its twin, and focusing intently upon it.

“ _Still am, yeah._ ” Tony’s grin was audible. “ _Should I move somewhere less crowded?_ ”

“Darling, you read my mind.”

“ _I’d think you’d’ve had enough of that, today._ ”

Loki’s smile warmed a bit further at that. “Not when it’s you.” He paused, putting a hand over the receiver. “It was charming to meet you, Dr. Grey, do have a good evening.”

“You too?” she said, a bit off-balance.

“Are you somewhere less crowded now?” Loki refocused, closing his eyes to the spell could give him a vague idea of where he would be landing.

“ _Yeah. Go for it, love._ ”

“Excellent.” Loki vanished with a crack, leaving behind a fast-fading cloud of emerald-green smoke.

Jean made a face. “No brimstone smell, at least. God, I hope Kurt doesn’t have any Norse mythology in his ancestry; we don’t need any more of this in-house.”

 

~~

 

Loki appeared in front of Tony, ending the call on his phone and dropping it back into his pocket, casual as he could be, despite the chaos of alarms his arrival set off: flashing lights, sounds akin to sirens, and a few people aiming guns at him. He ignored them, smiling as Tony stepped close enough that they could hear each other over the alarms.

“How was your day, honey?” Tony asked.

“Lovely enough. Apparently I have fans, and some of them are junior X-men.”

Tony sniggered. “Seriously?”

“At some point, though everything I have heard makes me loathe to do so, we should look briefly into our following on a website called ‘Tumblr’ apparently.”

“Oh god, that place?” Tony made a face. He pressed a button on his own phone. “JARVIS? Can you persuade the alarm systems to knock it off?”

“Certainly, sir,” the AI assented from his phone. Within several seconds, the alarms began shutting off, starting with the ones nearest to them, just as Nick Fury rounded the corner, looking thoroughly annoyed.

“Director Fury,” Loki greeted, with a slight bow. “I understand you’ve captured an intergalactic war criminal who had plans to assassinate two princes of Asgard.”

Tony raised an eyebrow.

Loki leaned closer for a moment and murmured, “By the way, you have a title.”

“Could be interesting,” Tony mused.

“We have,” Fury admitted, bristling a bit at the crisp, politically curt tones Loki had used. “You have a key interest in her, obviously.”

“As do we all, I believe. She might have started a _war_ ,” Loki said.

“Prematurely, and between the wrong parties,” Tony clarified.

“Oh, you _have_ been productive today, then,” Loki whispered.

“Absolutely. The helmet thing?”

“Less than 48 hours,” Loki replied, voice still low.

“Oh, you are _good_.”

“Of course I am.” In more publicly audible tones, Loki remarked, “If you have no qualms with it, Director Fury, I would like a word or several with your prisoner.”

“Under close surveillance,” Fury specified, “You may.”

Loki inclined his head. “Of course. My thanks. You will need, I suppose, about half an hour to prepare for that sufficiently?” _Getting one or two snipers in place_ , he did not add, but his smile somehow implied it.

“Ten, at most,” Fury said sharply.

“Of course. My apologies for being so remiss.”

Fury narrowed his eye at Loki. “Diplomatic immunity will only get you so far, Loki.”

“I’m well aware. I believe you promised something about persuading someone to crush my skull, as I recall,” the god of mischief countered.

“I’m glad you remember,” Fury dismissed calmly, before walking away again down the hall, barking orders at a few confused S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who still had their guns trained on Loki.

“He’s terribly fun to annoy,” Loki mused.

“Oh yes.”

“Also, Tony?”

“Hmm?”

Loki grabbed him by his shoulders, pushed him firmly against the nearest wall and kissed him hard, ignoring the sounds of a few lingering, suspicious personnel making their abrupt retreat from that section of the hall. Pulling back, Loki said, “Next time, summon me.”

“You were in the middle of either getting your own head’s interior repaired, or repairing someone else’s. Interruption of that sort of thing struck me as a _bad idea_ ,” Tony countered.

Loki sighed. “Point made.”

“Hey. I’m fine, really.” Tony pulled him down, kissed him again, more softness to it. Then he pulled back. “You’re alright, too, yeah?”

“Yes. I’m quite well.” He rested his forehead against Tony’s gently. “Repairs done, Scarlet Witch de-possessed, plans in motion: all is well on the eastern front.”

Tony smirked a bit at that. “Natasha liked the idea you had about which copies to give her,” he said.

The god of mischief chuckled at that. “Oh, won’t that be a sight.”

“Nightmare worthy, but yeah, tell me about it.”

For a few moments, they breathed each other in, their mutual tension easing a bit.

“You’re keeping that gem,” Loki said firmly.

“Agreed. You think Thanos plans to pop into the assassin’s brain?”

“Once I’m in sight, it’s not unlikely that such a thing might be triggered,” Loki admitted, then began to smile unpleasantly. “Although it’s quite possible that she may call, and he may not answer.”

“Why’s that?”

“I learned something today.” Loki pulled back a little. “Apparently, the Soul gem can pull at him if he is in someone else’s mind, in spite of distance.”

“You’re keeping that one,” Tony said firmly.

Loki grinned. “Agreed.”

Someone nearby cleared their throat.

The pair looked up with matching mock-innocent expressions.

Clint made a face. “That’s extremely creepy. Stop it.”

Tony sniggered. The god of mischief merely offered the faintest smirk.

“The prisoner is ready for you. Just you, Loki. Fury apparently wants a word with you in particular, Tony,” the archer said.

“Of course he does,” Tony sighed.

They disentangled and pushed away from the wall, following Clint out.

 

~~

 

Natasha, Clint and Bruce were amongst the many keeping close watch on Loki interrogating Thanos’s assassin. Unlike the more heavily-armed agents in close proximity to Loki, the Avengers, by contrast, were watching on flat-panel screens.

The Black Widow, personally, was feeling a bit validated. Her own pet-theory, that Loki was so infuriating to interrogate was because he _knew_ how to interrogate, was being proven accurate right before her eyes. “He’s good,” she commented.

Clint made a thoughtful noise.

“Bag. Of. Cats,” Bruce said, and elaborated no further; he didn’t have to. The other two Avengers nodded in placid agreement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can see why it would've been tricky to fit a sex scene in this one.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Plans in motion reach their point of no return: the top of the mountain before they tumble down the other side in an avalanche. Loki is terribly good at interrogation, Amora is difficult to contain, Thanos is deceived but uses it to his advantage according to plan, the press is confronted, and moral compasses are consulted at the Avengers strategy meeting over take-out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> " _And after you have dabbed the patch you'll grieve_  
>  And then proceed to scratch the varnish off  
> That newly added calmness,  
> So as not to raise any alarms too soon."
> 
>  
> 
> -Arctic Monkeys, "Dance Little Liar"

There was a cell in Asgard that Odin had hoped to never use: close enough to the weapons vault that the Destroyer was its guardian, and could easily eradicate the prisoner and all around them including that cell, by doing little more than turning its head and opening up wide, at the first sign of a possibly escape attempt.

“There is nothing we have been able to do,” said the master healer. “Not our mages, and not our psychics can pry these hooks from her mind without destroying her. As is law, All-Father, we do not inflict such torture even on exiled criminals.”

Odin frowned, his eyes narrowed at the healer. “What are you not telling me?”

The elder hesitated. He was dark, the lines on his face deep: lines of joy, and lines of intense grief. His pale brown eyes were nearly amber near the center, and paired with his slightly wild salt-and-pepper hair, he looked like the wisest wolfdog in Asgard. “She overtook two of our best, who tried to help her.”

At that, Odin’s lips thinned. “I did warn you all not to look into her eyes, or stare too long at those barbs in her mind.”

“They meant only to help,” the old healer said.

“They are incarcerated now as well, then?” Odin sighed.

The old healer frowned. “Yes.”

“And sedated heavily, I hope,” Odin said.

The elder’s eyes momentarily widened, just enough to indicate alarm. “There was no sign that they were-”

Odin was already on his feet. “There _wouldn’t_ be! Not if they were seeking to glean information without our notice!” He descended the stairs with remarkable speed. “It may already be far too late!” He ceased to look at the elder’s face; instead he merely strolled past him, and uttered a low, rumbling spell under his breath. All those around The gallows-god, healer and guards alike fell abruptly unconscious.

With a further wave of his hand, he prevented any of them landing too violently. The sounds of cawing ravens echoed through the throne room: carrion-calls from battlefields and improvised gallows of the distant past. Odin’s eyes were dark and his power flared out through the room, incinerating threats of interference he sensed: threads of the weaker, secondary hooks that his own subjects––compromised as they were––had been forced to inflict upon each other. The healer was afflicted with the deepest of them: small and insidious enough that the old Aesir had been as unaware of them as everyone else had been.

Odin spun on his heel and headed straight for the weapons vault.

Every guard in the halls he moved through fell unconscious before they could even catch a glimpse of him: protection for them, and for the mind of Odin All-Father alike. They could not have their minds taken over, this way.

The floor trembled under his feet and he grimaced, sensing the Destroyer awakening, a barrier between the mind and sight of weapon, and himself, where one had not been before. Then and only then did he realize how well this trap had been laid. He sucked in a breath. “Damn.”

 

~~

 

The real trick to keeping up with a mind like Loki’s was not to limit oneself to a mere one or two trains of thought, Tony had learned. That was how the trickster god looked at people: from a dozen angles all at once. _What does this one want? What does this one_ need _? What makes this one angry? What frightens this one? What does this person see when they look upon me? How do they see themselves in relation to their perception of me? How can that be manipulated? What hurts this one: what words can make them all but bleed?_ Those and others, all rapid-fire in the god of mischief’s head. It was all written in the shrewd, assessing sweep of his gaze behind that maddeningly self-assured smile, and Tony could see it as soon as Loki caught sight of their prisoner: the assassin.

So Tony looked at Loki with that in mind, a mental ticker-tape of questions and answers of his own coiling up in response as he watched. The answers took position in a sort of matrix, forming the skeletal support-structure of plans and ideas, elegantly arching and coiled around each other. Three camera angles from which to watch the show, here in the main control room right outside the cells: separate screens from those watched by the rest of the Avengers. Only Fury was there to watch with him.

For the mad inventor’s ears alone, Loki had briefly summarized his interactions with the X-men, and the Maximoff twins. Tony had already slotted that into the timeline. _Plans are already changing, re: 1-Loki sinking claws into Thanos’ soul, and 2-Thanos sending an assassin rapid-response._ He tapped his fingers _rat-tat ratta-tat_ against his arc reactor, thinking in all directions and absorbing Loki’s performance for Thanos’ assassin in the process.

“She was caught too easy,” Tony murmured under his breath. Even factoring out the Space gem resting against his skin just under his collarbone, Tony had a feeling that a creature like Thanos knew better than to send one super-powered assassin after an Avenger, let alone against Loki in his most defensive state. And she hadn’t been subtle: walking right up, asking for him. Natasha was right about her not seeming to be very good, unless she really wasn’t sent with intent to just kill them––thought that would have obviously been a bonus perk.

 _What are we missing?_ Tony wondered. He thought of the last pawn of Thanos’ that had squared off with one of them: Amora, the bloody Enchantress. He’d sent her gift-wrapped to Asgard. She had to be neutralized. She had to be. They had checked, while there the last time: she was locked up in their most secure cell.

Even so, looking at the caged little assassin, so unperturbed by her captors, Tony began to wonder. She was only a little less composed than Loki had been, when he had been locked away in a similar cell.

The mad engineer watched, and waited, thinking all the while.

 

~~

 

“He has not answered your call,” Loki challenged, seeing her face fall after she visibly tried. “Your master is afraid of me, little one.”

“My master fears nothing,” Gamora said, low and dangerous.

“He does not fear _death_ , that much is true, and for most people that might be impressive,” said the trickster. “There are still worse fates out there, however, and he is not without just enough cowardice in him to make him almost likable.”

She smiled at him: humorless and condescending. “Do you mean to threaten me with such fates, god of lies?”

“The very best lies are those which involve truths people refuse to believe,” Loki said, his expression almost gentle: a mocking mimicry of actual concern. “You refuse to believe that your master would abandon you here, for instance. I do suppose he has invested much in you over the years, so it is a fair assessment. He has only raised you since your infancy, after all.” A fluid, careless shrug. “Though he’s hardly your father.”

The assassin’s good humor drained out of her. “Is this meant to hurt me?”

“I would hope that such a fierce woman as yourself would not be so easily injured,” Loki returned lightly. “You know he does not view you as his daughter. Given his history of murdering, mutilating and tormenting his kin, I can only see you benefitting from that. It is not as though one such as you ever required tenderness and affection, or approval from one you would worship almost as a god for all he has given you.”

Gamora’s expression was darker than most thunderclouds. “I should advise him to start by cutting out your tongue, once he catches you again.”

“He would not be the first to try,” the god of lies said, smiling bright and carefree and charming. “Nor will he be the last, I’m sure.”

Resting one shoulder against the thick glass of her prison, Gamora smiled thin and unpleasant as she peered down at him. “Of course, we might save it until we first take care of your heart.”

“Because that worked out so well for you earlier,” Loki said, smiling only wider, though the good humor did not reach his eyes. “I imagine that you achieved less than half of what you set out to achieve in that regard. Did you think you might wound him, cripple him, and use that against me?” He chuckled, low and cold. “Please, do feel free to underestimate us both to such an extent in future.”

“How many know he is not human, I wonder?” she asked.

Loki laughed, loud and bright. “Is he not? Well, that would be news to me.”

Her brow furrowed. “No human can move the way that he moves.”

The god of mischief just kept smiling, stepping closer to her cage and saying not a word to confirm or contradict her words.

“What have you made of him?” Gamora asked, after a long moment. “How much power have you given up for him?”

“He has made himself what he is,” Loki said. “And his power is his own. He need not rely upon me. Is that what you must think of love? Well, you must _rely upon_ your master _very_ much.”

The assassin’s mask cracked for a moment into a snarl. “I will pull open our ribcage and slowly carve away your lungs, sliver by sliver, cauterizing each incision so that you do not escape too early by drowning in your own blood.”

“Creative, yes, but creative words only get you so far. I would know, of all people,” Loki chided. “And your words are not half so skilled as mine.”

“Words will do you no good against Thanos.”

“Oh, but they already _have_ ,” Loki chimed. “After all: here you are. Far from your home, where you know all of the good hiding places, every twist and turn of the streets, every secret place outside the barracks where his armies swarm. I had been concerned that you might actually pose a threat to myself and mine later.”

Gamora’s eyes narrowed. “Your lies are increasingly pathetic.”

“Oh? And what lies have I told so far?” The god of mischief laughed, low and cruel. “Deception I have woven intricately, but I have told you very few if any _lies_ , Lady Gamora.”

“Do you really expect me to believe that?” she snapped.

“No,” Loki said, smiling like a child at the promise of candy. “I truly do not.” _And that’s the beauty of it._

“You do nothing ‘truly’ in your life, Lie-smith. You have betrayed Death’s champion in this universe: her most devout worshipper, and one who once had power over all that is,” she growled. “You will not laugh for long.”

“You are here,” Loki said softly, “because I provoked your master. He now knows me to be in possession of a weapon which he cannot fight against, not at his current distance. Knowing him, he believes that I will use it upon you. After all-” he pulled the Soul gem from where it rested under his shirt and held it between two fingers for her to see. “-it is certainly the most foolproof and efficient means by which to obtain from you everything that you know: about his base of operations, about his plans, and all.” He smiled as her eyes widened, and applied just enough pressure, just sharply enough, to make her suddenly aware of her own soul as it resided in her body, and how it might be possible for him to rip it away.

Gamora took a half-step back from the glass wall of her cage. “You would not dare. He will-”

“He will what?” Loki prompted, voice low. “He sent you to me. He sent you to hurt the man I love, whom he learned about ever so recently from the mind of a charming woman I chased him out of earlier today.” He smiled, quick and ferocious. “I did so by reaching up through the hooks in her mind to begin ripping at his soul. I had just gotten a grip, a hold there, and might have ripped it out of him, solving all of my problems, but he was wise enough not to stand his ground, and just quick enough to reel in his barbs before I could get the proper metaphysical leverage. He _fled_.”

She did not flinch when he stepped still closer to her cage, and stood a mere inch from the glass, but it was a near thing. “He would kill you for harming me,” she whispered.

“Oh, but he plans to kill me _anyway_ ,” Loki purred. “I might as well get all the weapons I can by interrogating your very soul, do you not think? I’m certain you have a _great deal_ of useful knowledge. In fact, I’m certain that he wanted me to have that knowledge. He wants me to think I have advantage, and feel confident that I know all there is to know about that icy waste he has militarized.”

Gamora shook her head, but could say nothing.

“You are a _distraction_ , Gamora. A sacrificial lamb. I, however, am not quite _that_ sort of god. I have no altars, and you would look dreadful on one in any case.” He dropped the Soul gem back under his shirt. It was warm against his skin, itching with a hunger of its own. “Perhaps we should return you to him alive, to let him know just how terribly you failed him: captured within less than an hour of your arrival by a human in a suit of armor, and unable to serve your purpose of distraction because you lacked sufficient appeal as a sacrifice. How very disappointing to your... mentor.”

The assassin’s jaw clenched. “You know not of what you speak. He will retrieve me.”

“Did he promise to send for you?” Loki gushed. “Oh I had thought so. Did he promise to send an Enchantress and her Executioner to escort you back home?” He grinned, wide and fierce, at the wide-eyed look she gave him, which confirmed it solidly. “Oh, poor girl, poor girl, you are. Did you truly think my father the sort of god who can have the same artifact stolen from him _twice_ , especially when he knows who so desires it? And did you think they would really bother to detour here to retrieve your corpse once they have it?”

The look of outright disbelief on her face was more than eloquent enough. “Your Odin All-Father cannot stop it. He cannot prevent them.”

“He need not,” Loki said, starting to laugh. “Oh, but I do love that you think that. The fact you do is very informative to me.”

“Why?” she bit out. “How are you so certain? You have lied to your king, deceived and misled and tricked him yourself; you know he is hardly infallible.”

“Precisely,” the god of mischief chimed. “I know him well. I know the workings of his mind, the protections and deceptions he has been wont to put in place on occasions that he’s caught on to me early, and oh, poor girl, Odin caught on to you and yours the very moment that Enchantress was sent to him. She’s a trap just as you are, albeit less desperately willing.”

“You pestilential, fucatory son of a festering cesspit’s whore,” she snarled.

Loki’s eyebrows raised slightly. “I think the only cesspit here is where you got your manners, but I admit that you have some true artistry going for you where your insults are concerned: bravo.” He smiled brightly when she bristled with outrage. “Now, I know you to be chock full of enhancements both cybernetic and magical, and there’s something this particular Infinity Gem is capable of that I find terribly intriguing; it can revert beings to their most _natural state_. Particularly individuals enhanced by such means, or shape-shifters.”

Gamora’s eyes widened. “No.”

“I won’t rip out your soul, little one, but I hardly trust you enough to leave you here with all of your powers intact,” Loki chided. The Soul gem began to glow, just visible through the white cloth of his shirt.

The captured assassin screamed, and guards ran in, guns pointed all at Loki, who merely held up a hand. “Wait,” he ordered firmly, with enough staunch authority in his voice to make them actually hesitate. When no further violence or sounds of pain followed, they settled in to actually wait, but did not lower their weapons.

Now crumpled on the floor, Gamora lifted her head and glared up at him. She did not look very different: years of training had seen to that. It was only from within that the difference could be so profound. Her arms shook and her breath came in ragged gasps. “I swear that I will kill you for this.”

“Now, now. Even _I_ try to avoid making promises I cannot keep, and I’m the _god of lies_ ,” Loki said softly. “You are neither dead, nor sans soul. Given what you intended to do to my lover, I am being _more_ than merciful. I could have killed you without alerting a single guard, had I so desired. They would not have known anything was amiss at all until they noticed hours later that you lay in a pool of your own blood. I might have twisted you up worse than mere physical pain.”

She hissed as she felt a hint of it: a sensation deeper than flesh and bone, and it was _stabbing_. Her eyes widened in silent panic as she understood with abrupt clarity that her soul might really be capable of being _cut into_.

“Consider,” Loki said, low and dangerous, “how you know your Thanos thinks. Consider that in my place, he would have taken the soul of such as you without a thought, tearing it from you and leaving your body a mere husk in its wake. He has no reason whatsoever to suspect that I would be _more hesitant_. Not when he has an inkling of what I would do for the man I love. He has been in my mind and does know some of the truly terrible things I am capable of.”

“Then why do you hesitate?” she snapped back, voice shaking.

“I do not _hesitate_. I _decided_ this, as a matter of practicality.” He narrowed his eyes a little. “I believe that whatever you know, he has planned ahead believing that I will take such second-hand foreknowledge into account. I believe that anything in your mind _truly_ important was carefully omitted from your memory before he sent you. I do not plan to give him that satisfaction––not when I recall the place well enough myself, from all of my personal wanderings through it during those early days wherein he believed me to be a loyal pet. Why hinder myself with your misleading context overlaying my own, which he knows not the limitations of?” He smiled then, cool and humorless. “Think on that, with an eye for strategy, and tell me how many of your memories still make complete sense.” Bowing low, ignoring the armed guards still watching him closely, fingers on triggers, Loki said, “Fare you well amongst your newfound fellow mortals, Lady Gamora.” He then turned on his heel, and left her cursing after him.

Before he could make it more than a few steps beyond the door into the corridor, Tony appeared at his side, apparently mid-stride and already keeping pace with him, and said, “You didn’t mention that you’d left any traps in the weapons vault.”

Loki paused and turned to face him, head tilted ever so slightly. “Only the one, and I did not have it aimed at anyone in particular. It wasn’t even a precaution, really: just a tangential bit of mischief, though it may now prove useful.” He examined Tony’s expression curiously as the mad engineer gripped the lapels of his blazer and pulled him closer, and bringing their faces closer to the same level. “How did you know?”

“You’re the one who’s successfully stolen from that vault before.”

“Is that all?”

“How else would you have found out where your father was really hiding the tesseract?” Tony returned. “I hope he left a deceptive enough fake.”

“Not quite,” Loki mused. “But I saw no harm in improving it.”

“So that’s two traps you laid.”

“Precautions, and the second one was not even mischief: just improvement of a pre-existing trap for the sake of assuaging some small part of my own paranoia.”

“True,” Tony conceded. “But what was the first?”

Loki dragged his teeth across his lower lip, smiling a little when it failed to distract his lover in the least. Challenging was always good, with Tony. “Just a little spell: little and insidious. I’ve stolen from that vault before, but that makes it trickier to get away with. I wanted to lure someone else into trying first––they might even succeed, given that it would not occur to my father to protect it even half so well as he does the tesseract and other power sources at the present time.”

“Loki,” Tony warned. “Tell me.”

He did so, close to the inventor’s ear, and then told him how the angles had changed just right to make it not merely mischief, not merely a way to loosen a stone he later wanted to pick up, but instead a direct delivery into the hands he had planned to place it in.

Tony hummed. “You didn’t plan this?”

“I hadn’t known I could use the Soul gem to such affect, despite distance,” Loki said softly. “You know I did not. I would have found a way to use that long ago.”

“True enough,” the inventor murmured. “Pulled him out through Amora and had done with it.”

Loki gave a low hum of agreement. “That said, I have a thought for your consideration, to end this more swiftly.”

“How questionable is it?”

“Very,” Loki admitted. “It would provoke all parties into immediate action.”

“You want to steal the real tesseract.”

The trickster pulled back enough to stare at him. “I love it when you do that.”

“No stealing the tesseract,” Tony said firmly.

“Why not?”

“They will find out: it’s questionable enough why the fake and the real one _both_ would be stolen,” Tony said. “We still have to live with them often enough, and doing so after a trick like that would be quite difficult.”

Loki opened his mouth to protest, then closed it, his brow furrowing. “I... actually do live in the Avengers’ tower now, don’t I?”

“More often than not, over the past few months,” Tony said lightly. “You like it.”

“I––I do.” He sounded a bit disturbed by the thought.

“You even sort of like the other Avengers a bit, even if just to use them for mischief target-practice.”

“How did this happen?” Loki muttered.

“They turned into a sort of family, which I’m in, and you started out sort of marrying into––then they decided they sort of like you too. Well, except Clint, but that’s Clint, and you did sort of violate his consciousness by taking over his mind and body.”

The god of mischief stared at his lover in mild confusion. “You’re saying they’ve adopted me.”

“They adopted both of us, really. It’s nothing bad. You’ve just––got more than one family, if you’re interested in accepting the unspoken invitation.”

For a moment, Loki seemed utterly at a loss. “You... do you realize-”

“I do,” Tony said softly. “I love you. And I’d like to be part of your life, and your family is a frankly immense part of that. Did you think I didn’t want you just as tangled up in mine?”

The god of mischief settled his arms around the engineer’s waist. “Tony...”

“You want me, I come with a lot to deal with, that will become your business. There’s earth, and protecting it, and there’s the Avengers, and treating them like they’re sort of my siblings––or maybe an uncle in Steve’s case, given he was friends with my dad.”

Loki kissed him softly, almost chastely. “So no tricking them into leaping headlong  into a war by stealing the tesseract, is what you’re implying,” he said quietly.

“Yeah, just a little,” Tony said. “Because I think we can agree that we don’t actually hate them.”

“Agreed,” the god of mischief mused, still sounding a bit disbelieving. “I feel as though I’ve contracted something suspiciously like a case of morality, now.”

At that, the inventor scarcely managed not to give an undignified snort, though he did laugh a bit helplessly. “Oh, fuck no. Never that.”

“Oh really?” Loki smiled as Tony’s arms wrapped around him in turn.

“It’s just being practical. And part of that is admitting when grudging politeness is necessary, even when inconvenient. If anything, you’ve got a bad case of ‘being fond of people despite the fact they have morals’ which was likely bound to happen eventually.”

Loki rolled his eyes.

“Besides that, my dear lie-smith,” Tony purred, “don’t you trust me? They didn’t call me _The Merchant of Death_ for nothing. I didn’t start any wars directly, but fanning the fire is art I mastered a long time ago.” It still itched him with a bit of self-loathing to remember how carelessly he’d done it before, but this was different. This one was his war, and Loki’s, and getting rid of Thanos would prevent a lot of people from untimely death. It was his responsibility, this time, and he felt much more in control. “We don’t need to do that to start a war. Just be a bit more patient.”

Seeing his mixture of pride and edge-of-guilt, Loki kissed him again, a bit less chastely, and said,  “I trust you,” in low and sincere tones. “I trust you to pull me back when I drift too far. You are good, as I have never been.”

“Liar,” Tony whispered. “You’ve been a hero, now and then.”

“I’m a villain, but I’m hardly one-dimensional,” the god of lies countered.

“No, never that,” the inventor agreed. “But you listen to me. You let me pull you back. You’re better than you think you are. I know good when I see it; you know I do.”

Loki rested his brow against Tony’s and let his eyes fall shut. “I should have skinned her for trying to kill you.”

Someone nearby cleared their throat pointedly.

“Agent Romanov,” Loki greeted, eyes still closed. Tony didn’t move except to glance sidelong at her from the corner of his eye.

“You can call me Natasha, you know.”

Loki’s eyes fell open at that, and he looked at her appraisingly. “Thank you, Natasha,” he said lightly, though he knew Tony could hear the thread of gravity in it.

So could Natasha. She smiled. “And it’s not just because, if we’re to fight a war on your side, then I prefer to think that you like us enough to be on a first-name basis.”

The pair exchanged glances.

“If you think I don’t suspect the pair of you to be prepping for outright war now he’s sending assassins, then I’m frankly insulted.”

Loki and Tony simultaneously and silently concluded that she most likely hadn’t been listening all that time, despite how suspiciously timed her statements were.

“You’re not wrong,” Tony said. “Also, I think we’ll be hearing from Thor soon about Amora and Asgard. Call it an inspired guess.”

“Hmm.” Natasha’s eyebrows raised. “We should talk strategy, then. Come on, let’s go home, for that. Too much surveillance here, and if it catches much more footage of the pair of you cuddling in corridors, Fury’s blood-pressure will start to suffer.”

Tony took hold of Loki’s wrist and pulled him along after her. “You heard her.”

Loki nodded a bit numbly. It was still unfamiliar to hear the word “home” and think of a place outside Asgard, but he couldn’t argue. Not in the least.

“If we order take-out,” Tony said, “We can keep Clint at the table instead of in the ceiling.”

“Good plan,” Natasha admitted.

“Mr. Lie-smith,” said a low, authoritative voice nearby.

Loki turned, and met Fury’s stare without flinching. “Yes, Director Fury?”

Fury stared at him hard for a long few moments. “Consider S.H.I.E.L.D. with you, for now, in this war. I know you sure as hell won’t share intel with us if it doesn’t much suit you, but neither do most foreign government agencies we’ve worked cooperatively with over the years. And don’t rip out Dr. Steven Strange’s soul. He’s useful.”

The god of lies considered and bowed slightly.

“Maybe next time, warn us before you take away all the enhancements of an alien assassin like that, though. Fewer people startle that way, and we could’ve dampened the sound,” Fury added.

Tony, for the first time in a long while, recalled that Fury was capable of being really ruthless despite how paternal an relatively civil he acted around most of the Avengers. He’d seen the occasional glimpse like this before: never outright evil, but cold and cunning enough to disconcert.

Loki absorbed this new data with some approval, satisfied that his theories where S.H.I.E.L.D. and Nick Fury were concerned, he had not been too far off the mark; civilians took precedence over enemies, and fellow soldiers were to be protected with all the ferocity that close kin might be, whether or not most civilians would find such acts tasteful, or no. “I will take it into consideration. My sincerest thanks.”

Fury nodded at them dismissively, and walked away.

Natasha watched with raised eyebrows. “He must’ve liked your interrogation. Next thing you know, he might ask you to be a consultant.”

Tony frowned. “Hey.”

“A theological consultant?” Natasha suggested. “So you’ll be less likely to get competitive?”

Both Loki and the mad inventor snorted in amusement at the thought.

 

~~

 

Skurge had materialized in Asgard at Amora’s summons as soon as the Destroyer was led astray, giving chase to psychologically compromised healers, unable to heed any new orders from the All-Father by means of the psychics Amora had spread her affliction to.

The healers had done well at fixing all but her mind, and her powers had never been less than impressive.

Skurge did not at first notice how changed she was, but obeyed her order to wait, listen and protect while she freed the tesseract from the intricate locks and wards put around it by the All-Father. While watching, he paced, and listened to the distant sounds of destruction being wrought by the vault’s guardian. A glimmer of something in the corner of his eye caught his attention, as most large bladed weapons tended to. He had something of a passion for them: mostly axes, of course, but now and then a sword would pique his interest, as this one now did.

It was massive, almost too large for his hands, and he wandered over to peer at it more closely. Runes inscribed on it indicated it had belonged to a son of Muspelheim, and a powerful one at that. Having one or two such ancestors in his convoluted family tree, Skurge only found himself more curious. He reached out to wrap a hand around the grip and felt it shift under his hands until it fit perfectly in his grasp: size and shape and immaculate balance.

Acting on impulse, Skurge lifted it, and found it felt like a natural extension of his arm as no other sword ever had. It felt even more natural than the Executioner’s axe had, many years ago. No sheath would fit it, he knew. It gleamed, reflected the light in shades of red and gold despite how otherwise cool and silvery the ambient light of the weapons vault around him was.

“Skurge,” Amora called, voice low and rich with self-satisfaction. “Come here.”

He approached her, though when he got close he felt the hairs along the back of his neck prickle as he sensed something deeply _wrong_. “My love?” he asked.

The Enchantress turned and looked him dead in the eye: all blue glow with twin windows into the abyss where her irises and pupils used to be. Prehensile, Thanos’ power struck out along her long-established connections to the Executioner, and seized hold of his mind with long, curved claws.

He scarcely managed a syllable of struggle before it was over.

Amora rose to her feet, holding the tesseract in the same container Thor had brought it home in. Her power crackled through it, as she extended the other end to Skurge. “Come, my love. We’re part of a war now, and you are the very best soldier I have ever known.”

“Your soldier alone,” Skurge said, his voice a little uneven as he momentarily struggled.

“I’m not my own anymore,” she whispered. “Not until this is done. Please.”

Of his own accord or not, Skurge took hold of the other end of that container, and felt it pulling at him, felt something drawing at them from further away than he would have ever been comfortable contemplating.

They vanished in an explosive burst of power.

With him, Skurge still carried Surtur’s sword.

 

~~

 

Ordering take-out on the way home and having the Quinjet drop them off for pickup was, in retrospect, not a very subtle move. Really, Tony shouldn’t have been at all surprised when a few reporters appeared between the restaurant and the jet, and fixed their attention on Captain America, Iron Man, and Iron Man’s fiancé, when they stepped out of the restaurant carrying almost a dozen bags heavily laden with containers of Thai food.

Loki, looking only a little less immaculate than usual in his suit, seemed unperturbed by them, as compared to Steve who immediately began to fidget and stammer a bit about just wanting to get back to the jet.

“Excuse me sir,” the first journalist, a brunette with a business-like ponytail and fearless expression, asked, “Is your name Luke Lysmthe?” She pronounced it Liss-mith. “Or is it Lyesmth?” Lies-myth.

“The latter,” Loki lied. It sounded sufficient enough. There was no harm in the claim. He had picked up enough of a grasp on modern Midgardian computer systems months ago, and as a result had legal documents and a legitimate-looking history of past residences, as well as a driver’s license and passport that weren’t even forgeries.

“And are you engaged to Mr. Tony Stark?” another one, a man with a keen expression, wearing a checked suit indicative that he was definitely working in print rather than television.

“I’m right here!” Tony protested.

“I am. No further questions, please. We have a prior engagement.” He and Tony sidled through and past them easily, but quickly enough to off-balance them just a little, as Steve struggled to follow.

“Captain America, what do you know about Mr. Lyesmthe?” inquired the third and last reporter: a tall blonde with a commanding air.

“He’s, ah––look, I’m not going to answer any questions about them, alright? Excuse me, please, I just-”

“Is he also an Avenger?” she cut in.

Steve sputtered and gave a helpless near-hysterical laugh. “Not last I checked, and be careful asking him that,” he said, before he could stop himself.

“Steve, come on!” Tony said.

“Mr. Stark! Why are you being so insistent on keeping quiet about your engagement and your fiancé?” the brunette called.

That gave the inventor momentary pause. “Look, we’ve been busy.”

“As a self-proclaimed asset to public safety through your ‘privatized world peace’ platform, and as the genius behind Stark Industries, don’t you perhaps owe it to the public to let us know what sort of man you plan to partner yourself with?” the blonde woman added, equally loud. People on the street had already been staring. Now absolutely _everyone_ in the crowd seemed to have their cellphones recording video, aimed right at the pair of them.

The question gave both the god of mischief and Tony Stark pause, and they turned and glared at the reporter for a brief moment. Loki recovered quickly, and caught Tony’s eye, smiling faintly and arching an eyebrow.

“If you must know,” the god of lies began, droll and amused, “I’m from England, I’m well educated, self-employed as a consultant to one or two government agencies on an unofficial basis, and don’t have much more in the way of a criminal record than does Tony.” He smiled and shook his head a little. “Were you expecting a super-villain?”

That caused Tony to snort derisively and Steve, who had just caught up to them, to pale and look scandalized.

“Are you a super-hero as well?” the journalist in the loud checked suit asked.

“Hardly,” Loki returned.

“Why were you in the Avengers’ jet, then?”

Loki and Tony both looked over their shoulders toward the Quinjet, which hovered above the street and sidewalk several feet higher above any passing bus or truck’s roof, Natasha and Clint just visible in the cockpit. It seemed as though they'd forgotten all about it up until that point. They turned to again face the reporters. “We consult for some of the same people,” Tony said simply. “He’s hitching a ride.”

“The rest of the details are classified, of course,” Loki added.

“Is that how you met?” the brunette called.

Loki and Tony both smiled at that, sincere and a bit vicious.

“No,” Loki said.

“Nope. You’re way off,” Tony concurred.

Steve was starting to shoot them urgent glares now, and gesturing toward the jet.

“How long have you been together?” asked the blonde.

The pair hesitated, both of them doing a bit of rapid assessment and math, whispering to each other very quickly. Steve took that opportunity to flag down Clint and gesture eloquently.

“When was it you-”

“Just over eight months after the initial tesseract incident,” Loki muttered.

Tony nodded. “Right. And it took about six months to finish all the processing of that element.”

“And it’s been very nearly another four since you proposed,” the god of mischief murmured, thoughtful.

“Close to ten months,” Tony concluded, just over half a minute later. “Now, I really think we’ve done our bit of sharing for the evening-”

“When is the wedding?”

“ _Fuck off_ ,” the god of lies and the mad inventor both snapped, in eerie unison, just as a ladder lowered quickly from the Quinjet, which now stirred the air around them quite noticeably, and loudly.

“That was almost my head!” Tony muttered.

Loki shook his head and started up the ladder. Tony followed, with Steve after him. Upon return to the jet, they were addressed by Bruce as the loading bay shut with a hiss, “I’m glad no one took your bet, Tony.”

“Which one?”

“Thor is waiting at the tower, apparently. Amora got out, after stealing a couple of things,” Bruce explained.

“Well. Nicely timed,” Loki mused, reclaiming his seat beside Tony’s.

“Have fun harassing the press?” Clint called.

“Only a little,” the god of mischief responded.

Tony seemed to think of something and pulled out his phone, tapping away at it rapidly for several moments. He then let out a startled laugh and covered his mouth with a hand. “Oh my god.”

“Yes?” Loki looked over his shoulder. He then stated silently for a moment, eyebrows slowly creeping upward. “That is...”

“Accurate,” Tony said. “You ‘do what you want.’ A lot.”

Loki shook his head. “Humanity is full of strange people. That’s so obviously edited.”

“That’s half the joke, I think. As for what I originally dropped in to look for: yes, those videos are already uploading _damn_ fast, as I thought. Three are already posted. I had a feeling they’d show up here, since you mentioned it,” Tony murmured. “Let’s see what’s on your tag now, ‘Luke.’”

“I’m afraid to ask.”

“What on earth are you two doing?” Steve asked finally, unable to take it any longer.

“If ever you want to find an aspect of modern society that baffles me almost as much as it does you, Cap, then look up Tumblr,” Tony said simply. He then looked extremely surprised for a moment, and whistled. “I wondered what people were doing with those pictures, other than a few gossip rags.” More quietly he added, “And that dress still looks unfairly fantastic on you.”

“Why is that connected to ‘Luke Lyesmth?’ on this website?” Loki asked, genuinely a bit baffled.

“I get the feeling it has something to do with the mysterious ‘RPF’ under the ‘read more’ link,” Tony said gravely.

“RPF?” Bruce asked.

“I don’t know, and I’m not at all sure I want to know,” Tony said, and closed the window. “Footage of that little impromptu press conference is already there, though. That’s the main thing. It’ll be viral in a few hours or so: I’ll bet your twenty bucks, Cap.”

“Viral?” Steve responded.

“Never mind.” He relaxed in his seat and rested his head on Loki’s shoulder. “You up for being hounded by paparazzi?”

“I could always just look like someone else when I want to walk along a street unmolested,” Loki mused. “Though in your company, I’ll refrain: it would be unfair otherwise, and I wouldn’t have half as much fun.”

Tony smiled faintly and let his eyes fall shut. He settled a bit closer and seemed content there, comfortable as Loki slid an arm around his waist to steady them despite the humming vibrations of the jet in flight.

Clint and Natasha weren’t looking, obviously. Bruce had a tablet out the whole time, mostly ignoring them other than paying the conversation half an ear. Steve, by contrast, had nothing like flying a jet or complex chemical formulae to divert his attention to. He wound up spending a full minute very deliberately not-looking, then gave up and glanced over. He twitched a little to find Loki staring straight at him.

The god of mischief raised an eyebrow eloquently and mouthed, “Problem?”

Steve considered, and shook his head. He glanced pointedly at Tony, then shrugged and gestured toward them, mouthing back, “Seemed private.”

Loki looked back down at Tony for a long moment, then glanced briefly back up at Steve. He nodded, easily indicating, _I concede you’re right_ , and rested his cheek against Tony’s hair, his own eyes falling shut as well. Tony opened an eye, then closed it and settled a hand over Loki’s at his hip, whispering something that made the god of mischief smirk again and look just a bit more himself. They continued talking quietly, their words obscured from being overheard by the loud humming of machinery.

Steve smiled at them a bit before he could stop himself, and found it a lot easier this time to look away, out through the cockpit of the jet as they pulled within sight of the tower. _Just when I think I’ve seen everything_ , he couldn’t help but think, for the umpteenth time.

 

~~

 

Thor was deeply unsettled by the Destroyer’s rampage through the sections of the palace around the weapons vault in Asgard. He had gotten very touchy about attacks which reached that safe place, most particularly after the whole frost-giants-disturbing-his-coronation episode. Loki was quite aware of this, which was part of why he waited for Thor to explain it to the others before exiting the kitchen to join the conversation.

He had not, however, entirely expected to find himself pinned to the wall by his throat so very soon. Not that it lasted long. Instincts taking over, Loki snarled like a mad thing, changed shape into a serpent just long enough to slip from Thor’s grasp, then returned to his usual form in time to hurl his adoptive brother to the ground in a violently efficient manner. Thor was an excellent warrior, usually could best his brother, and fought particularly well when angered; and yet, far less so when the anger was diluted by internal turmoil, conflicting emotions, and outright distress all at once. Loki had always been able to take advantage of that when necessary, and wasn’t about to stop now.

“Thor,” he warned. “You can’t seriously expect me to have had a hand in this.”

Thor nodded. “I don’t. You knew it would happen, however.”

“So did _father_ you idiot!” Loki snapped. “Why else would he have installed Amora so near the vault, and such a convincing replica of the tesseract in there while hiding the original? He knew the risk as soon as Tony and that damn mage called Strange delivered her to his doorstep.”

Thor’s brow furrowed deeply. “He said that he was surprised that they had been fooled by it, actually.”

“Thor,” Loki growled. “I’ve already dealt with a possessed witch with Thanos and a terrestrial elder god warring for supremacy in her brain, a scouring of my own psyche with the aid of a powerful telepath, Thanos’ vain attempt to assassinate my lover, and several of my plans forcibly being altered by circumstances with more haste than I am comfortable with, all within the _same day_. Do not _try_ me.” He bristled, the temperature around him dropping like a stone.

The god of thunder’s eyes widened a little as he watched his brother’s appearance so drastically alter. He went to sit up and Loki’s boot settled over his throat to prevent him getting very far. He could feel the air around them grow bitterly cold. “My apologies,” Thor said carefully. “I had not known.”

Tony chose that moment to step in and referee. “Well, now that’s settled.” He rested a hand on the crook of Loki’s elbow and tugged firmly. “Let’s talk about this whole war business over some curry.”

Loki removed his boot from his brother’s neck and took a half-step back, as well as a slow, deep breath: clearing his head a little. The inventor’s hand was warm, even through his shirt-sleeve. Focusing on that, he warmed up enough to return to his more usual appearance. “Yes. Let’s.”

Thor sat up slowly, staring at his brother. “I did not mean-”

“Stop, please,” Loki snapped. “I would not be so troublesome for you, with especial focus and devotion to making your life more difficult, if it were not in the hopes of overcoming some small degree of your maddening optimism, brother. That you consider my motives suspect is a sign you might actually be starting to understand how other people _work_.” He narrowed his eyes. “That said, there are far subtler ways to seek out your answers. Violence will get you nowhere with me, as you well know.” He proffered a hand.

With some surprise, Thor accepted it, and Loki’s help in regaining his feet. “I am not sure whether to thank you for that or not.”

Loki shrugged. “I am hardly surprised, Thor. You still have a great deal to learn before you can work that out, I’m sure.” He then turned away, heading back into the kitchen.

Tony watched him go thoughtfully, then turned back to Thor, shooting him an arch look, mildly questioning.

“Did my brother just imply that he has been trying to make me a better person?” Thor asked, sounding frankly baffled.

“Yeah,” Tony said. “You hadn’t noticed?”

Thor appeared at a loss.

“Why else would he be exasperated with you as often as he is angry or irritated?” Tony pointed out. “If he didn’t care or only hated you, he’d just ignore you, or outright kill you in a waaay more efficient manner. He wouldn’t get worked up about it. Have you seen him angry at strangers, at other people?”

“Yes. Well, it does not appear the same...”

“Because he doesn’t care about them,” Tony said firmly. “And he knows that showing his anger would just give them an opportunity to manipulate him, so he handles them coldly, matter-of-factly. You, though? You get under his skin so he can’t be that cool-headed when you piss him off. Consider that.”

“My anger is not so easily tempered as his,” Thor said.

“It never had to be, before. His did, probably in order to survive yours when he was little.”

Thor hesitated, disconcerted by how accurate that sounded like it might be.

“Just a thought,” Tony said. “There’s a reason I don’t seem to get angry real easy either, let’s say.” He cuffed Thor on the shoulder and dragged him into the kitchen. “C’mon. You want to join us in destroying Thanos and his entire army?”

“I have learned that massacres and loss of life on such a scale-”

“These are half-dead aliens again. Chitauri drones grown and controlled by Thanos,” Tony reminded gently.

Loki spoke up and further added, “Another race opposed to the Chitauri have made some contact with Asgard. They are actively at war with many of Thanos’ forces elsewhere in the galaxy, and sought to learn more of our technology and our weapons, mostly once they traced the energy signatures they had detected from the overloaded bi-frost to Jotunheim as the impact zone, and Asgard as the origin point. They were impressed.” Loki grimaced a little and took a sip of his drink, which may or may not have been mead imported from a non-terrestrial source. “This race, the Kree, claim that they were originally the long-standing enemies of the Chitauri themselves, until Thanos’ army wiped out most of the more advanced Chitauri, and used the remaining mindless drones and genetic manipulation technology to breed a vast and obedient army. They are about as sentient as particularly well-bred and well-trained murderous livestock.”

“Convenient, morally speaking,” Clint mused. “Any proof of that?”

“Well, the lot of you were able to mow down nearly two hundred of them in a single day. While they were numerous and strong, would you say they displayed a lot of higher brain functions such as creativity or even attempting to control the human populace rather than senselessly wreaking havoc amongst them?” Loki inquired. “It’s questionable whether they even have a true sentience, rather than a sort of hive-mind, which is why destroying the ships of their armada caused all of the remaining soldiers of theirs on the ground to simply collapse.”

“Do they have souls?” Natasha inquired, purely practical.

“I suppose we’ll find out,” Loki mused. “I would think that they do, to some extent, miserable though their existence must generally be.”

“Don’t tell me you’re thinking this is mercy?” Clint asked.

“What is this ‘mercy’ you speak of?” Loki deadpanned back. He then snorted and added, “Rest assured, I’m perfectly aware that what we are discussing will be nothing less than large-scale destruction with a lot of cutting down quasi-sentient soldiers.” He took a long sip of his drink.

“My god, you people really do need a moral compass,” Steve muttered. “Thor, help me out, please.”

Tony settled onto a stool to Loki’s left as the god of thunder settled in between Clint and Steve. The hotter green curry was visibly making Bruce, at Tony’s left, sweat as he helped himself to it. Loki seemed be be enjoying the burn from his own dish, even as it brought a bit of color to rise across his cheekbones. In the time it had taken Tony to lead Thor into the kitchen, the god of mischief had vanished his blazer, rolled up his sleeves, and sat down directly across from Captain America.

“Loki, I am distinctly uncomfortable with your continued blasé attitude toward mass murder,” Thor said calmly.

“You’re much better at being morally conflicted than I could eve be, brother,” Loki countered. “In that regard, the Captain is quite right in seeking your aid in the moral-compass department, for you are closer to him in morality. We are most of us at this table broken people, I believe. Watching the reactions shared by the pair of you, whom most of us respect one or the other of to some degree, in response to our more questionable behavior, is very grounding. You give us context in which to judge our actions that would not otherwise occur to us.”

“That’s a bit disturbing, actually,” Steve muttered. “Does it really not occur to you ‘slaying hundreds’ might be a negative?”

“I lived among their barracks for some months, Rogers,” Loki said simply. “What remains of a once powerful sentient race has been reduced to automata, in the Chitauri. Some few among them are capable of limited speech beyond the unsettling chittering, insect-like sounds they all chime with when in large numbers––and those few tend to be like birds mocking the sounds of actual speech, but lacking any understanding of the meaning of the words. Their very existence is abhorrent to me when I spend too much time thinking of it. I could kill thousands of them and find it no more difficult to sleep at night.”

“Is that how you felt about the Jotuns?” Thor inquired lightly.

“I did not know them as I know the Chitauri. I never lived among them. I imagined them more monstrous than they truly are,” Loki responded. He thought of what Mistress Death had shown him: that spectacular view of the catastrophic destruction he had wrought on the world that he had been born upon, years. It had indeed become an all-too-frequent addition to his dreamscape’s already troubling array of nightmarish occupants. “I cannot say that it has left my sleep unaffected,” he admitted, with some reluctance. It was as close as his bitter pride would allow him to go, in coming close to the admission that he regretted far more of his actions than he would ever let on.

Thor was sufficiently surprised by it regardless, which was good enough.

“The main thing we really need to think about,” Tony cut in, opening his own carton of food and unwrapping the banana leaves around it, “is strategy, here. However much of the army gets in our way, the main object is to get rid of Thanos and get out. Unlike most tyrants, he doesn’t have anyone waiting in the wings to take over, so it’ll actually work.”

“So this is still more assassination than it is a siege?” Bruce inquired.

“Is there a reason it can’t be a bit of both?” Loki asked innocently.

The rest of the table exchanged glances.

“That sounds a bit... haphazard,” Steve said.

“We start by causing a distraction, some reasonable distance from our actual target,” Tony began. “Loki and I have a plan for that already that should divert about half of their local force in that area for a while. Needless to say, it’ll be big and involve a lot of explosions, most likely. Don’t worry about it.” He waved it off with a hand.

“Secondly,” Loki added, “We take out the generators that power their armadas of ships which, in turn, power all of the Chitauri soldiers. Many of them are based around the main fortress wherein Thanos spends most of his time, because the key to maintaining the full extent of his control over his forces is through the Mind gem in his possession.”

“About that Mind gem,” Clint said slowly.

Loki held up a finger, pulled out his cellphone and narrowed his eyes at the time there. “I shall have a defense against it for us within the next six to eight hours. Tony should be able to replicate one for each of us.”

“Wait, you already managed to arrange to get Magneto’s helmet?” Steve asked.

“Oh yes. It will be by convenient delivery, in fact.” Loki smiled.

“I’m glad you’re on our side for this one,” Steve muttered.

“Now that’s covered,” Tony said, “We get down to the main event: that fortress. Getting to the lower levels around it to start powering down multiple armadas, and then actually destroying the generators without severely damaging ourselves in the process by making them blow up, won’t be terribly easy. I’ll need most of you with me, keeping the area clear while I handle the more technical parts of that. Thor, if you could keep any ships full of reinforcements from landing too nearby by making the weather thoroughly nasty and unforgiving, that’d be great, too.”

“I’ll be handling Thanos until that’s complete,” Loki said.

There was an uneasy pause.

“You’re sure you can manage that?” Natasha asked, her tone cool and even mildly concerned. “Really sure?”

“I frighten him, while I do wield the Soul gem, and with a helmet which blocks telepathic interference, he has only so much he can use against me,” Loki said. “I should be more than capable of holding him at bay. If I need more than that, I will call for aid, but that shan’t really be necessary.”

Natasha examined his expression, and Tony’s. She decided that if it was a lie, it was a good one, and the mad inventor must be in on it either way. “I will trust you, then,” she said, knowing full well that the pair of liars would understand her meaning.

The god of mischief nodded, with a hint of a smile. “My thanks.”

She only narrowed her eyes a little. _Don’t make me regret it_ , was heavily implied.

“Our plan is really to kill him, then,” Steve said. “No trial-”

“He has been on trial, by many galactic and inter-galactic councils. All have declared him a menace, and all but those most pacifistic have called for his execution,” Loki said. “He once brought about the deaths of over half the universe’s population just by wishing it, in order to impress his lady love.”

Steve’s expression hardened, though it was still clearly edged with regret. “I see.”

“It troubles you?” Loki inquired gently.

“Yeah. Executions usually do,” he said.

The god of lies nodded soberly, understanding. “I do understand. You have a greater and more forgiving heart than most creatures in this universe of ours. I must emphasize, however, that this is a thing that must be done. Thanos cannot be contained or imprisoned for very long––many have tried. He cannot be redeemed––many have tried, and he has simply killed them. He is in love with, and worships, Death. He does not wish for mercy, unless that mercy is to be embraced by his love.”

Steve stared at him for a long moment. “I get the feeling that any time you talk like that, I’m being manipulated.”

“Well,” Loki said. “You’re not altogether wrong. Persuasion is just a polite term for manipulation, after all.”

“How much of what you just said is something you actually believe?” Steve asked, genuinely curious. “If you’re feeling honest enough to answer.”

“In this case, I believe most all of it. Thanos requires very little embellishment, in regards to horrors committed. You would do well to fear him.”

“Do you?” Clint asked.

“Yes,” Loki said, without hesitation. “I do. And consider for a moment the sort of things I personally am capable of.”

“Okay,” Steve sighed, reluctantly. “I understand.” He cleared his throat. “Let’s go over the layout of this fortress Give me an idea what we’re dealing with.”

The god of mischief nodded, and began sketching out the rough outlines of a map in the air with a bit of magic, explaining as he went.

 

~~

 

They discussed and strategized into the early hours of the morning, until exhaustion began to take its toll, first on Clint and Bruce, then Natasha and Loki, followed shortly thereafter by the others.

Thor caught Loki’s attention before he could quite leave, and requested a word. With visible reluctance, the god of mischief obliged, nodding at Tony, who followed the others out.

Turning to his adoptive brother, Loki raised an eyebrow. “Yes, Thor?”

The thunder god hesitated briefly, then stood to bring them more level. “You are certain about handling this Thanos alone?”

“Quite,” Loki said, low and sure. Lies, after all were his forte. No need to let anyone know that spell he had used to bind his soul to his body had been introduced to him by Thanos, who would be more than bright enough to use it as he had: just making the life of Loki Lie-smith that much more difficult. “It is something a must do myself, for a number of reasons, most of which it is best that I do not elaborate upon.”

Thor’s lips thinned, and he shook his head. “The way you have spoken of him, and all that I have learned of him since your return home from-”

“Brother,” the god of lies said quietly. “I fight in a manner that differs very greatly from yours, as does Thanos. He is a genius and a strategist. I am a trickster, and uniquely well-suited to tripping up such madmen with their own carefully-woven webs. This battle will be far less about brawn than you are thinking.”

“I see,” Thor murmured. “You will call for me, if I may be of use?”

Loki raised his eyebrows a little, even as he gave it some serious consideration. “I shall,” he said quietly. “If I do need you, brother, but do not come until called by myself or the others, or you will only distract me, and endanger us both.”

The thunder god nodded. “I concede. You have my word.”

“I thank you.” He inclined his head and moved as though to leave, but Thor’s hand on his upper arm stopped him again.

“Are you happy, Loki?” he asked, glancing pointedly toward the door, then meeting his brother’s gaze again.

“Yes,” Loki said, unhesitant. “I am, with him.”

A faint smile tugged at Thor’s mouth. “I am glad. I ask you to be careful, then, not to get killed. I would like more time in which to see you as happy as this.”

“I...” the god of mischief cleared his throat. “I will. Thank you, Thor.” He rested a hand over his brother’s on his arm and squeezed lightly. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” Thor said, and let him go, following out only so far as the living room, where they parted ways without another word.

 

~~

 

Tony was in the middle of requesting that JARVIS start construction of a new set of arrows for the marginally insane archer to use in conjunction with the Power gem, when Loki strolled into the lab looking thoroughly exhausted.

“Hey,” Tony called. “You alright?”

“Prolonged time spent on construction in the astral plane is more wearying than one might think,” he said simply, pausing briefly to rest a hand on Tony’s hip and kiss the nape of his neck before moving toward one of the other work tables. “I do, however, need to be nearby when Miss Maximoff chooses to deliver her gift to us.” He pulled out one of his daggers and cut his thumb with it with a small, practiced and efficient gesture, then began drawing a seal almost identical to the one he had drawn for the young witch, differing only in a few of the sigils.

Tony wandered over to watch. “So. Advanced science.” He shot his lover an arch look. “It’s nanomachines in your blood, isn’t it? Has to be.”

“Spontaneously inborn into only certain individuals?” Loki inquired lightly.

“Usually hereditary, notably. Especially on the maternal side, you mentioned.”

Loki chuckled. “Dr. Steven Strange, irritating though he may be, is one of the most powerful mages from Midgard I have ever met. His family history, according to S.H.I.E.L.D., indicates no previous individuals with similar gifts.”

Tony frowned. “He uses a lot of artifacts, though. Maybe those-”

“It’s not machinery,” Loki said softly. “I would have told you far earlier if it were.”

“Yeah,” Tony murmured, watching Loki finish up the last few mathematically-precise adjustments before murmuring a spell to heal the small wound on his thumb. “How else do you control it, then? What mechanisms do you have than someone like me lacks?”

Loki looked at him thoughtfully for a moment. “I never said you lacked the gift. Most mortals have magic in them, or they would more commonly be resistant to its effects; a vast majority of them never develop any awareness of it, let alone _use_ it, and many more have genetic, psychological, and other barriers which might prevent them ever cracking their reserves without the aid of an experienced mage to teach them or awaken any latent gift. You may well have an untapped well of it; however, you also never asked me to verify. If you have a latent form of it you have never used or needed to use, then I would have to do a bit of real searching to find it if you have the sort which can be 'awakened' as it were, but that would be a bit like giving someone a full medical scan without asking, so I have not done so.”

At that, Tony opened his mouth to speak, but found no words for a few moments. He cleared his throat, and tried again, “Wait, what?”

“Would you like me to? It’s painless.”

“I...” Tony felt his skin prickle. “Yes, I guess.”

Loki straightened up and turned to face him, waiting a moment until Tony mirrored the stance. He then lifted both hands on either side of Tony’s head, fingertips gentle as his thumbs settled at the inventor’s temples, and the rest of his fingers, only slightly curled, rested against his scalp just behind his ears. “Relax, Tony,” he said quietly.

“You really think-”

“Shh.” The god of mischief shut his eyes, breathing slow and deep almost as though asleep standing up. “Feel anything?”

“Um. Your fingers are warm.”

Loki snorted, his lips momentarily curling with a hint of amusement, but his amusement soon faded back into an expression of serene concentration. “How about... now?”

Tony twitched slightly as a strange pins-and-needles jolt of warmth rolled down his spine. “Felt that.”

“Hmm.” Loki gently tilted Tony’s head back, and reached out again, seeking the familiar dissonant hum that came from someone else’s power brushing against his own. It was trickier, when such powers might be inactive, but not impossible. It just took a delicate touch, and a bit of patience. “Let us see, let us see,” he murmured.

After a few moments spent watching Loki’s face, a study in rapt attention, the inventor deliberately relaxed a bit further and let his own eyes fall shut. He could still feel a lingering tingle from that last test-buzz, and focused on it a bit. It seemed to be moving, creeping through him on that surreal non-physical level he’d only encountered in dreams, and on the one or two occasions Loki had shown him something on the astral plane and/or in the god’s own head. It was a bit hypnotic, really: humming, tingling, swirling up through him like smoke. Then he heard Loki suck in a breath and the calm haze was interrupted by something stronger: that pleasant hum suddenly a growl, with a crackle behind it that felt a bit like an electric shock. It wasn’t painful, just surprising, and his eyes snapped open.

“Well, then,” Loki said quietly, smiling at him a bit oddly. “That’s interesting.”

“Dare I ask?” Tony inquired.

“You usually do.” The god of mischief sounded intrigued and bit fascinated. “It’s deeply buried, but you have something there, and it’s not mild. Very interesting, actually.”

“I... have magic.”

“Yes. Many do, human or otherwise. It’s not readily accessible without training and practice to most. Rare exceptions are those whose gift engages seemingly of its own accord, like second nature.”

“That’d be you,” Tony said.

Loki nodded. “Other mages may find their gift awoken by contact with certain artifacts, such as Dr. Strange most likely did, by certain rare combinations of plants and other matter with somewhat hallucinogenic properties, or by some sort of traumatic event such as a near-death experience.”

“Well, if you count these gems as artifacts, take into account the wide variety of psychedelic drugs I’ve done in the distant past, and factor in my small collection of near-death experiences,” Tony said, “I’d say mine is a pretty damn heavy sleeper.” He hesitated. “Would you be able to... uh...”

“Possibly,” Loki said. “If you’re interested. It would give you an entirely new perspective from which to understand magic, certainly.”

“Man after my own heart,” Tony muttered. “Not that you don’t have it already, but that’s not the point. Uh.” He hesitated. “I still get stuck on the idea you’re telling me I have some sort of latent magic here. Is magic specialized in some way, from individual to individual, or is everything about how it’s used and trained?”

“One’s specialty where magic is concerned has more to do with one’s mind, and how quickly it grasps a subject. Vanishing, reappearing, creating illusions and such: these things were easiest for me to learn because I started out with a strong understanding of shape-shifting, which I’ve been capable of from a very early age.”

“How distracting is it likely to be if you wake it up before we go to war?”

Loki chuckled. “Fair point.” He lowered his hands, and rested his arms loosely around Tony’s neck. “It would be a distraction, yes, until you grew accustomed to it and began to learn a bit more about manipulating it.”

“Another time, then,” Tony said. “Because you know I’m fucking curious now.”

“Yes.” The god of mischief kissed him briefly. “I love that about you.”

“You need sleep, you know. You said your reserves were still low even before you left this morning, and you look like you’re about to fall asleep on your feet.”

“Yes. Proximity is important for that though,” Loki said, pointing at the seal. “So I’ll be down here. Summoning objects by seal and sigils isn’t advisable to do in one’s bedroom, for somewhat complex reasons.” He snapped his fingers to summon the cot kept in the lab for short naps to keep the sleep-deprivation hallucinations at bay while working on a big project for days on end. It promptly appeared beside the work table.

“I’ve got a few designs to work on, mostly the arrows, a few other things,” Tony said.

“Noise won’t bother me,” Loki said releasing him with some reluctance and laying back on the cot, hands behind his head. “I like listening to you work.”

Tony shook his head a bit at him, but smiled regardless, and stepped back over to the hovering 3-D models he had been playing with earlier, and getting back to discussing the specs with JARVIS. He got caught up in it again, and didn’t look up again for another half-hour, when he noticed Loki curled on his side, deeply asleep.

 

~~

 

Loki slept solidly until loud alarms went off the next morning, in the labs and a few other rooms throughout the tower, at which point the god of mischief woke abruptly and leapt his feet looking rumpled, adorable, and lethal all at once. Tony, who had settled into the cot with him just an hour ago for a nap while JARVIS set the rest of his mechanized minions about building Hawkeye’s new toys of mass destruction, swore a great deal in response to both the alarms and the sudden movements of himself and the cot alike when Loki propelled himself up and out of it.

Seeing no immediate alert in the vicinity, Loki called, “JARVIS? May I ask what is going on here?”

“Violent upheaval not far above the tower, reminiscent of scans taken while the tesseract opened a portal on your initial visit, Mr. Lie-smith.”

Tony sat up sharply. “I thought you said they took a fake one!”

“It was as false as the copies we’ve made of the Infinity gems,” Loki murmured. “It would be hard to mistake it for the real thing if Amora couldn’t transport herself back to Thanos with it, now would it? Seems it had enough power to do a bit more than that,” Loki mused. “JARVIS, do we have any footage, perhaps from the roof?”

In reply, JARVIS lowered a large panel display, across which a large, ugly, swirling bruise seemed to be forming in the otherwise clear sky.

Tony sidled up beside the god of mischief. “Looks familiar, yeah. Oh shit, look.”

The swirling gave way to an open portal, through which a series of those familiar Chitauri two-man hover-bikes began to emerge.

“Wait for it,” Loki murmured, lifting a finger. “Aaand-”

The portal twisted, then collapsed, taking the Chitauri soldiers with it, causing a mild rain of debris that would take quite a bit of explaining on behalf of some people from S.H.I.E.L.D., no doubt.

“There we are,” Loki said. “And you can hear the rage starting already. JARVIS, do please let Director Fury know that Gamora needs to be quarantined, as she may soon have some telepathic influence in the near future.”

“Also, cut the alarms, for the sake of all,” Tony added.

“Certainly, sirs.”

They both sighed a bit in relief in the momentary quiet that followed.

“You think he’ll try to use her the way he did the Enchantress? Makes sense. I thought he’d expect her to be dead by now, though.”

“He’ll be re-evaluating his expectations in the wake of that.” Loki gestured at the screen, whereupon the sky was now once again clear and blue. “Wouldn’t you?”

“She’ll think you were lying, then.”

“Oh, she never _stopped_ that,” Loki murmured, his brow furrowing. “He should have significant trouble making use of her, with her powers removed and a sufficient quarantine in effect. We are, however, running out of time before he tries something more drastic to get another shot at taking the tesseract again.”

As though on cue, a metallic clank, as of a heavy object being dropped form a height of three inches onto a steel worktable, sounded nearby. Both of them glanced at it and began to smile viciously.

“I suppose you’ll want horns on your copy?” Tony asked, approaching the table and picking up the well-kept metal helmet that had landed there. It was considerably lighter than it looked, which was good.

“It would seem out of character otherwise,” Loki said simply. “I prefer to start out playing to their expectations just long enough to lull them into a false sense of security.”

Tony snorted. “You just like the horns.”

“That too.”

Flipping it over and examining the interior structure, the mad inventor hummed. “There’s more to this than meets the eye, I think. More than just the exterior shape, but the way it was tempered, the way it conducts certain things even. Hmm.”

At that point, Bruce strolled in. “Tony, much though I appreciate being considered more scientifically inclined than the others, and therefore the only among them to really be alerted in the case of highly suspicious anomalies, I can’t emphasize how much I despise loud alarms.”

“Duly noted. JARVIS, change Dr. Banner’s settings to significantly less irritating ones,” Tony called up.

“Apologies, Dr. Banner,” the AI said politely. “May I inquire what you would prefer?”

“Something less abrupt, and a bit more like city sounds. I’m a light sleeper anyhow, but if it’s noises I’m used to it’s a lot easier to keep composure. It was a near thing, thing this morning.”

“Traffic or train sounds?” JARVIS suggested.

“That’s fine,” Bruce concurred. “Now what the hell was all that about? Did you two break something important?”

“No,” Tony said innocently, not actually looking up from the helmet between his hands as he began tapping along it with a fingernail, checking resonance.

Loki offered Bruce a succinct explanation of the fake-tesseract activity.

“Well,” Bruce mused. “Good way to prove he’s fixated on our little planet now, but I’m still inclined to think a lot of it’s your fault, there, god of mischief.”

“Well,” Loki said airily, “I can’t say you’re entirely wrong. The tesseract being here in the first place made it a bit inevitable regardless.”

“Conceded,” Bruce agreed. “Tony, is that what I think it is?”

“Special delivery, just a while ago. Want to help me make some more?”

Shrugging idly, Bruce said, “Well, I’m already wide enough awake.”

“I myself have one or two other matters to attend to,” Loki said, when the pair of them looked up at him expectantly. He waved a hand and the bloody seal on Tony’s worktable vanished. He winked at Tony, who shot him a _you’d better explain_ look. “Breakfast, primarily.” He grinned at the way Tony rolled his eyes, then vanished.

 

~~

 

Loki waited, and wished he had more left to do.

The problem with weaving plans on such a large scale, he reflected, was the daunting moment of free-fall toward the end, wherein he had to relax his hold, cease meddling, and let himself fall, forcing himself to trust the web he had woven to be strong enough and well-placed enough to catch him. The matter of Thanos being forewarned about his possession of the Soul gem itched at him, so he distracted himself by observing the tower’s other occupants and keeping tabs on the helicarrier.

Hours passed. Gamora made a few escape attempts, but only broke into one S.H.I.E.L.D. agent’s psyche before they managed to sedate her and put her in a still tougher cell: smaller, with only one small square window.

Hawkeye tested the new arrows Tony had made, in conjunction with the Power gem, in a secure underground bunker. He succeeded in nearly collapsing it, and emerged grinning and confident. Natasha didn’t practice much with her copy of the Soul gem, so far as anyone had witnessed, but her practice with her copy of the Space gem proved surprisingly creative. She drifted up through the floor not long after lunch and declared, “I can apparently use it to phase through solid matter. I’m liking this.”

Clint declared that to be creepy as fuck.

Tony finished making copies of the helmets, and altering one of his Iron Man helmets to suit the same purpose, all before the sun went down. As he had promised, Loki delivered the original back into Wanda’s hands; he did so personally mostly just for the sake of having something to do.

When the next portal opened over the tower, smaller and clearly a test run of something _new_ , something based on the fake Thanos now possessed, Loki felt his head clear and instinctively reached out with his awareness, soaking in power from his surroundings. “I would say we’re out of time,” he said firmly.

The Avengers did not disagree.

Before Tony fully suited up, he held out the Space gem, his hand palm-up.

Loki covered it with his own, entwining their fingers loosely. “Let me show you where we’re going, while I’m at it,” he said, and reached out, feeling formless and limitless for a moment before his mind got its bearings and he focused first on the distraction they had planned for Thanos’ troops. He reached for a place deep below the earth, sweltering and full of smoke, and found the creature he was looking for. He used the Soul gem to rob him of some higher thinking abilities and bring his murderous rage fully to the surface, then focused again on the Space gem, and _moved_ the ancient and powerful Surtur from his prison out, out to a cold and distant world that still made his blood run cold to see. He focused his attention on one continent, then one region, then the impressive network of forts and power-generating plants just north and west of Thanos’ fortress; then he hurled Surtur into the middle of it after dropping the terribly truthful suggestion into his mind, “ _they have your sword, hidden from you amongst them._ ”

Then he drew back to himself, the distance dizzying in his retreat, and his eyes snapped back open.

Tony held his gaze as he slowly exhaled. “That’s a long way out there.”

Loki nodded, his breathing still quickened from the exertion. “Yes. You’ll remember the way?”

The mad inventor nodded. “Yes.” He put the Space gem back on its chain around his neck, and tucked it under the fabric of his black-and-gold bodysuit. “You’re alright? Recovered? Not going to die on me?”

“I will return with you, Tony,” he said firmly, bonelessly unresisting when Tony pulled him closer, down into a long, heartbreakingly tender kiss. When they parted, Loki found he had lost the words he had planned to say next. “I love you,” he said instead.

“I love you, too. If you need me, call on me. I can be there in less than a second,” Tony insisted.

“I know.” Loki took hold of the hand on the back of his neck, loosening it so he could turn his head and drop a kiss on the tender skin of Tony’s wrist, right below the rougher callused palm. “And I will.” He then gingerly stepped back, as the rest of the red-and-gold armor, sans still-raised faceplate, pulled into place. “The others are waiting,” he said softly.

“Let’s go then. I’ve even practiced my lines,” Tony said, following Loki out. “You know? Profound starters. The violent equivalent of ‘one small step for a man’ and all that.”

“Oh really?”

“Yeah. Mine’s borrowed, though. I was thinking, ‘Cry “Havoc!” and let slip the dogs of war,’” Tony said.

“I like it.”

“I thought you would.” As they stepped out onto the balcony with the others, they fell quiet, partially in response to the grim silence of the other Avengers. Then Tony gestured with a curling finger. “Come on, everybody gather ‘round. It’s a long way away and the closer you are the easier it’ll be for me to focus.”

They drew closer.

The Iron Man’s faceplate snapped into place and he reached out, just as Loki had shown him before, and _pulled_ them. They vanished from Avengers tower, silent as shadows, just as the sun vanished behind the New York skyline.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which shit goes down: that's all there really is to say on the matter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “ _The liar takes a lot less_
> 
> Time _to decide on his saunter._  
>  Have you got itchy bones?  
> And in all your time alone  
> Can you hack your mind being riddled  
> With the wrong memories?”
> 
>  
> 
> \--Arctic Monkeys, “Dance Little Liar”

It began with a resounding cacophonous crash, from an impact severe enough to leave a sizable crater in the ice and rock, near the Chitauri’s portal into the void. The resultant shockwave set even the sections of the military installation hovering above the ground a-quivering, if only a little. The thing had landed on lines that linked the base back to its master’s fortress: power lines. The portal into the void, through which the army accessed secret and shorter paths between this world and a few dozen others, all equally dead now as a result, was sealed, as a safety precaution, by the automated systems. Alarms sounded, then intensified as the crater abruptly burst into flame.

Catastrophic destruction had always been the fiery Jotun Surtur’s modus operandi. His landing in the midst of the enormous Chitauri military base was no exception. He could sense the presence of his old blade, and he was twisted up with agony to his very bones, and still deeper: soul-deep.

After the initial crash, as soon as he sensed living creatures beginning to approach him, the demon opened his glowing eyes wide and his jaw wider, roaring like an explosion, like a volcanic eruption. Around him on all sides, Chitauri soldiers trained weapons on him, and their skyscraper-sized wyrms stirred, some starting to lift off the ground, others already in the air. Surtur rose to his feet, examining the dead-looking eyes of each soldier, casting out his will until he determined where his sword lay. He locked onto it just as the militia began to swarm toward him, heedless of the initial conflagration: it burned, but did not halt them.

Even without his eternal flame to light him, or his sword, he was not a son of Muspelheim for nothing. He had been gifted with millennia of waiting, building his power reserves for lack of anything better to do: not powerful enough to free him from Odin’s prison, but free from that enchantment, he was nothing less than a walking armageddon. With his roar the conflagration around him whirled into a tornado, heat steadily increasing until even the toughened hides of the Chitauri foot-soldiers scorched, melted, and vaporized when they drew too close to the eye of the firestorm. Beneath his feet, frozen stone cracked and groaned at the sudden heat, and he reached deeper, deeper into it with the power of his blood and his rage until molten rock seeped up from below and widened those cracks. The earth quaked under him, the changes in pressure and temperature rumbling outward from the inferno.

And a dozen miles to the south and west, a king and warlord in his chambers felt the ground under his feet quiver, and tasted smoke on his tongue.

Thanos emerged from his hall to stare out from the north tower of his fortress, and saw what first appeared to be storm clouds, until the wind stirred and the blazing orange-red glow of flame at the horizon became apparent.

Again, the very stone under the warlord’s feet shook, more powerfully this time as the forces of heat and pressure deep below the surface of the land were torn out of their usual patterns by the siren call of a son of fire and volcanic heat who had spent millennia doing little but soak up power and wait in his prison for the chance to use it against his enemies––and now Surtur saw those enemies positively _everywhere_.

Shaking his head, Thanos reached out for the creature’s mind, only to wince at the shattered, contorted mess he discovered: the cracks too deep, the anger warped and anchored somewhere beyond the reach of the Mind gem; the damage was soul-deep, beyond telepathic repair. He swore.

“Well played,” he growled. Then came an explosion from the southeast tower, and the shrieking across all telepathic wavelengths from the first line of his private guard. Thanos’ lip curled. “Very well played.”

“Why thank you,” said a low, cool voice behind him, fiercely mirthful. “I did hope you would appreciate my efforts.” About his neck hung the deep green soul gem, glowing fiercely in the dim evening light. He carried a scepter with him rather different than the one Thanos had given him: still spear-tipped with a wickedly curved blade, but longer, narrower and quicker. The glow near the middle of the blade was from a hollow where his power collected, not some shard of the tesseract: just Loki in all his wrath.

Thanos turned toward the voice and met the cool, appraising stare of the god of mischief. “Did you think to take me so easily as that?” He nodded at the Soul gem.

“No,” Loki said. “Nothing involving your defeat is ever _easy_ ; although it seems always to be inevitable.” Thanos’ soul was immovable, bound to his flesh and blood, as the trickster had honestly expected; it was an good trick, and if it had occurred to him, it was bound to have occurred to this warlord. Loki had known this would never come to so quick an end; although he did scowl just slightly upon finding strange wards in place preventing him from using the Soul gem’s _other_ powers too: those of reversion, as he’d used on Amora.

At his insult, Thanos sneered. He was as tall as Loki, and just over twice as wide: stocky, bulky, but not to such a degree as to be cumbersome. He shrugged off his long cloak, but left heavy helm and ceremonial-looking armor in place. “You are a fool to challenge me so directly; although I do wonder how it is you’ve shielded your mind so very well.”

The god of lies only smiled as the stone floor beneath them shook and the roaring cry of the Hulk in mid-charge drifted toward them from the south. “Mayhap I am,” he said. “Do you still not wonder why she advised you not to break me?”

The warlord scowled, the vertical marks on his chin standing out still more starkly. Red as a sunset with pale glowing eyes, he stalked toward the trickster god. “You are hardly her champion.” He drew a broad scimitar-like blade from his hip.

“The same could be said of you now,” Loki chimed, then swept away from a crushing blow from that heavy sword-blade. He blocked another with his scepter and leapt back, moving like the flicker of a candle-flame. “Does that charming weapon have a name like your assassin’s blade, perhaps? The God-slayer Mark II: Return of the God-slayer?” He skittered back, blocking heavy blows with forceful, glancing ones of his own, keeping Thanos’ anger at bay.

“You seek to impair my judgement by increasing my anger,” Thanos growled. “I assure you that you are far too insignificant to manage such a feat.”

“Don’t lie to a god of lies, Thanos, even one a little younger than you,” Loki challenged, grin widening. “I’m already itching at you, irritating you. I would add ‘maddening’-” He swept back, to the side, side-stepped a heavy chop from the blade and managed to slash open a wound on Thanos’ less weapon-laden arm before nearly getting gutted. Dancing back, he continued, “-but I think it fair to say your brain was addled long before I got here. Before I was even born, in fact.”

Thanos gave a wordless snarl and launched himself at the god in earnest: less testing, more murderous.

Loki’s grin faded as his focus increased, but his air of amusement, maddening and irritating as he could manage, never faltered in the least. Even as his breathing quickened and every second he seemed closer to losing a limb to another swipe of that damned blade. Thanos was still playing civil, still holding back.

 _Time to put an end to that_ , Loki thought, his teeth bared in the grinning rictus of the mad and the madly alive.

Thanos sliced right through it, only for the bisected trickster to evaporate. He spun just in time to fend off a spear-thrust aimed to get under his ribcage. “You think me so easily tricked?”

“You qualify as a mage in your own right,” Loki admitted, “and in your own manner, granted. That hardly means you can keep up with an illusionist of my caliber: few can.” He leapt back, but when Thanos followed, he landed unexpectedly on the edge of that curved spear-blade: much closer to him than it had appeared at first, and he might have been actually impaled had he gone much farther. It might have glanced off his armor but for Loki’s hand also touching on the chest-plate, skin oceanic blue and chilling. The metal began to creak and crackle and weaken, but before he could press the blade all the way through it, Thanos willed himself away just out of reach and slightly behind him, then took a swing, sword blade landing with a wet, grating thunk into the trickster god’s shoulder blade.

Loki snarled and twisted away, muttering a spell to repair enough tissue to retain use of his arm. The effort slowed him down, leaving him on the retreat, fending off fiercely aggressive blows that looked to require little or no effort on Thanos’ part.

“You are far and away out of your league, little god.”

“That has hardly stopped me before,” Loki panted, then grimaced as he recognized the spell Thanos had just woven: duplicating himself not via mirages, but solid, almost golemic copies, pulled from the stone floor under their feet. The trickster swore and charged with apparent recklessness, in three different directions, but the golems passed through him like smoke: all but the scepter blades in the possession of all three Loki’s, glowing emerald such that they hardly seemed metal any longer, and it cut through the copies of Thanos as though they were wet clay rather than granite.

“Very good,” Thanos chided.

Then one of them emerged from the stone just as Loki stepped on it, and seized him by the ankles: no longer so insubstantial. Thanos himself banished the trickster god’s two unusually fierce illusion-selves. Loki allowed it, letting the monsters of stone close in a bit, then he _shifted_.

An enormous black wolf took his place, easily thrice Thanos’ size, with a glowing scepter in its maw. He shook himself, hurling the cumbersome clones off the balcony or inconveniently back into the fortress by sending them crashing through the glass doors. The wolf growled, low and fierce, eyes blazing, then shifted back.

Loki stood, breathing less quickly than before, seemingly enervated by the little change. “Now. Where were we?” He aimed his scepter at Thanos. “Ah yes. I recall.” A flash of blazing green.

Thanos dodged it with a snarl and charged back into the fray himself, raising his blade high.

 

~~

 

The Hulk was doing an admirable job keeping the immediate vicinity mostly clear, while the impressive thunderstorm overhead with Thor as its orchestrator kept most of the non-infantry from getting too terribly far. It was really astounding, and almost terrifying, the sort of wreckage the Avengers could create when not restrained by thoughts of things like possible civilian casualties.

Thunder boomed close and terribly loud. The air was heavy with ozone.

 _I think Thor is well and thoroughly pissed off_ , Tony mused. His attention was divided, scattered. Most of it was focused on keeping them all alive, of course. It was harder than expected to keep track of his own body in flight, the location of those damn power generators, and the rest of the team. It took an effort not to keep an eye on Loki, too, but Tony knew that, of all things, would be an excessively weighty distraction. He also knew as soon as he stopped focusing on all at once, he was going to be hit by the mother and father of all migraines, but he pressed on nevertheless.

Natasha had vanished off his radar early, though. She had re-emerged briefly, phasing through a wall long enough to inform them, “Well, they do have souls, but they don’t amount to much.”

Creepiest goddamn thing ever.

Tony trusted her to take care of herself and the capsicle, though, as they covered the perimeter. Hawkeye was on top of the southwest tower shooting down any of those massive coelacanth-like ships of their little armada that happened to survive either Hulk’s rage or Thor’s lighting. Given he had the power gem under his vest charging up his high-energy projectiles, and was getting a real kick out of his own indestructibility, Tony kept awareness of him merely peripheral. He mostly kept track of the big guys: Hulk the wrecking machine and the god of thunder in full-on berzerker rage.

The generators were a bit more complicated. They were much more... _organic_ than he’d hoped. Surgically removing them via Space gem would cause a cascading reaction of collapsing veins and cables that Tony didn’t like the prospect of, from an engineering standpoint, and the amount of chemical spill would be horrific and possibly deadly even to his more harm-resistant fellow Avengers.

So he was left dissecting them without cutting into them or prying them open, all the while trying not to pay attention while Loki tussled with someone who had once destroyed more than half of the universe’s population as a courting gift, and making sure the two craziest members of his team didn’t get out of hand.

Tony Stark was all for multitasking, but this was getting a bit ridiculous.

With the generators, he started carefully removing components, removing barriers to alleviate pressure and provide a place for volatile gases and liquids to escape through, carefully orchestrating the equivalent of a quiet death by sudden stroke in the middle of the night for a massive almost neural-esque structure of power currents and hive-mind.

He got quite lost in it, after several minutes, finally able to get the hang of it as his mind mapped out track after track, poking holes in critical places, and dropping the resultant bits of debris in key locations to redirect the flow. The light in the whole complex below the fortress began to flicker with a sound like a hissing, creaking groan. Finally, the dozens of large energy-producing cells the size of elephants began to darken and collapse, first one by one, widely scattered, then rippling outward, and outward. One or two did burst, making Tony curse under his breath, but it wasn’t enough to be too great a danger––not yet.

Distantly, he heard shouting over the comms. Something was running their way, too fast, and it seemed to be setting a great deal of things on fire. As the armies collapsed, it grew faster: its progress unimpeded.

Tony tapped into the comm channel specific to Loki, “Running low on time. Your bull in a China shop is charging our way.”

“He’s chasing his sword,” Loki whispered low, his breathing ragged. “Skurge must be on the run.”

The inventor cursed. “What should we do about-” He heard a shout and the line cut out.

“Channel disconnected on the other end, sir.”

“Diagnostics,” Tony demanded.

“Running now, sir, but there seems to be a great deal of interference. High readings of energy processes not entirely unlike Loki Lie-smith’s more impressive magic tricks are blanketing the northwest tower. Someone seems to be erecting a series of wards, or activating pre-existing ones, if I had to guess.”

“I didn’t get any sort of... JARVIS, why am I not detecting this with the gem?”

“It seems attuned specifically to oppose your Space gem,” the AI replied.

“That’s not good,” Tony muttered. “He shouldn’t even know I have it.”

A small alert appeared in the peripheral of his head’s up display, and Tony flicked back onto the Avengers’ main frequency. “What is it?”

“You really shouldn’t be on radio silence, Tony,” Steve scolded.

“Busy. Something’s up in one of the towers, and I’m heading to check it out.”

“Sir, diagnostics complete,” JARVIS interrupted, in his other ear. “Loki’s comm unit seems to have been destroyed: crushed by a forceful blow.”

Tony felt his blood drain from his face and muted himself for a moment. “That was under his helmet,” he said, a bit numbly. “Oh, _shit_.” He got back on the main channel. “Power is down. All hands to the Northeast, on the ground: we’ve got Amora’s pet executioner and a big fiery badass headed our way,” he snapped. “I’ll be busy upstairs in that tower.”

“Anthony, this distraction you and my brother summoned-” Thor began, sounding suspicious already.

“Later, Twisted Sister,” Tony shot back, and vanished, dropping off the channel and knowing JARVIS would report his radio silence if they kept trying to talk at him. There was nothing worse, Tony had always known, than helplessness. He soon found that he couldn’t reach the northwest tower the quickest way. Try as he might, something blocked him from using the gem. In the end, he resorted to blasting a hole through the most convenient exterior wall and taking to the air.

 

~~

 

Loki’s gift for timing was, if anything, tragically inconsistent, but never enough to actually get him killed, in most cases. Just enough to get him scarred, usually.

Thanos, he was certain, would leave a few marks, at this rate. His magic could only keep up with so much battle damage, and that last gash had almost gutted him. Shape-changing wouldn’t work: it would only give Thanos an opponent to grapple with directly, by hand as it were, and the mad warlord was unquestionably the better of them in sheer brute strength. Changing form could only bolster that strength so much, and Loki knew it would still be shy of matching Thanos. Rapidly changing shape to keep slipping away would only last so long before it began to wear on him, the bounce-back adjustment to a different physique taking longer and longer.

He was being worn down, and he knew it.

“I had hoped, given your boasting, little god, that you might prove more of a challenge,” Thanos boomed, his voice projected loudly to overcome the intermittent, near-deafening cracks of thunder as the wind picked up and Thor’s storm grew, feeding off of warmer air currents from the massive conflagration and geothermal disturbances to the north of them. Much of Thanos’ chest plate below the collarbone had fallen apart due to ice-based damages, and his face was marred with a scorched-looking black handprint: the frost on it not yet thawed.

“Would you prefer I have aimed for your chin?” Loki countered, bracing himself to stand his ground this time. When the inevitable strikes fell he caught and deflected each, not bothering to riposte. He let the titan push him back toward the edge of the now battle-damaged balcony’s broken terrace. The ice under his feet felt oddly comfortable, his own natural cold making fresh frost with enough texture to prevent him slipping. Thanos was less lucky, and had to adjust to compensate. Loki snarled and hurled a burst of cold at him, spiked waves of ice closing in around Thanos on all sides, and he could not dodge fast enough to avoid the dagger-like edges piercing his flesh. They sunk in deep.

Loki back-stepped further with haste when Thanos shattered all of it with a single forceful move, pulling the sharpened tips, lightly bloodied, from his body and dropping them to the ground as he continued prowling closer.

“You cannot overpower me,” Thanos said, his voice flat and grave. “You damned fool: you might have been of _use_ to me.

“If this were really about power alone,” Loki said, “I might have considered. You, however, are a broken creature without the sense and practicality to admit to your faults. Power suits you poorly. Trust me, I would know.” He grunted under the next onslaught, breathing hard even as Thanos glared down at him with disdain, and effortlessly hurled him across the balcony. _Oh good_ , Loki thought, _Now he wants to chat._

“What I do wonder, little liar,” the warlord drawled, “is why on earth Mistress Death even took the merest notice of you.”

“Well,” Loki grunted. “I had just nearly succeeded in destroying an entire planet with nothing but a bag of tricks and a bit of manipulation of both my own kin and pre-existing infrastructure. That seems the sort of thing that tends to win her over, for some reason.” He regained his feet, but when he reached for his staff, it whirled away, the green light petering out, replaced by a flame-like shape the rosy color of a red laser, when Thanos caught it in mid-air: his power replacing Loki’s in the weapon. He dropped his sword and uttered an incantation in tones that were almost insultingly droll. The matter of the balcony itself altered shape and coiled fast about the trickster god’s limbs, pinning him in place.

Loki heard his comm beep, and heard Tony’s voice. “Running low on time. Your bull in a China shop is charging our way.”

“He’s chasing his sword,” Loki whispered low, his breathing ragged. “Skurge must be on the run.”

Tony said something in response, but it didn’t stick in Loki’s memory, likely because of the almost neck-snapping crack over the head Thanos gave him with his own spear, sending his helmet flying. It cut his face as it flew off, and tore the comm from his ear, leaving him scratched and bloody, staring up into the mad warlord’s face.

“ _There_ you are,” Thanos rumbled, beginning to grin. “Clever. I should’ve noticed that helmet was suspiciously new, and not of quite the same material as your armor.” He  chuckled. “And now you stand to lose what you most value over all else, then: that quaint, volatile little individual mind of yours. Even your carnal affection for that human of yours is rooted in that, I see: it’s even done you a bit of good, apparently.”

Loki winced at the feel of that prehensile mind creeping in through his shields despite all attempts to keep him out. He struggled, but made no progress. With bitter spite, he snarled, “As though your centuries-long courtship has ever lacked _organic_ intent. You are no more pure than I, and certainly no more superior.”

Thanos’ eyes narrowed and he focused more intently on slipping into Loki’s mind. “How spartan you’ve become. What are you trying to hide, little god?”

“NO!” Loki shouted, voice harsh. “Don’t you _dare_.”

Thanos’ head tilted to one side for a moment, as though hearing something, reading something. “Ah, you did find the Space gem. Gifted it to your lover did you?” His  voice took on an odd cadence and the air crackled. “Oh, it does pay to be prepared.”

Loki’s eyes snapped open.

“I have wielded every one of those stones, Lie-smith. Do you not think I would know how to keep other wielder’s at bay? How to hide from them when possible, and resist them when it is less so. I sleep here, after all. Now, perhaps I can find something here to show him.” He rifled through the corridors of Loki’s mind, tearing open obvious locks along the way.

With a low scream, Loki tried and failed to jerk away, muttering threats in increasingly hysterical tones, knowing Thanos could barely hear them.

All Thanos could really hear, with clarity, was of Loki’s tangled surface-thoughts, full of _no_ and _don’t_ like the constant buzzing of bees in a hive. “You have another gem, too: and you should have kept it for yourself. Where have you hidden _that_ one, I wonder? Or did you lose it? I can find no memory of where it resides: not like the others.”

Loki said nothing, though his breathing quickened.

Thanos chuckled. “I shall find out soon enough. Your distribution of the other gems was quite clever–– _copies_ , I see. Very well-done: I will credit you that. But I’m more interested in what you’re fighting so hard to hide.”

“Leave it,” Loki hissed. “Don’t. It’s not-” he cut off with a gasp as Thanos found it.

“What is this?” he all but purred. “So tightly locked, such intricate construction. What could you possibly wish to hide so deep within your own mind?”

“It’s not _for_ you!” Loki shouted. “Don’t. Don’t you dare! _Please_ , don’t.”

“Ah. Valuable to you, then. Hmm,” Thanos examined the astral form of it: a chest wider at the bottom, narrower at the top, locked down tight, He began breaking the locks slowly, one by one.

Loki shuddered, collapsing in on himself. His thoughts were almost a mantra, half-sensible, so repetitive they were: _No no no no no_. It took a real effort to maintain, but if it were loud enough...

And Thanos opened the box.

The trickster god sucked in a breath, his whole body tensing in the brief heartbeat of silence following that little action. _Frantic thoughts, loud and repetitive enough, can be impossible to detect insincerity in when the intruder hearing them is sufficiently distracted_ , he recalled, as though from a textbook.

In that same moment, the contents of the box launched themselves a Thanos, who began to scream.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Loki rasped. “I do hope you like your mistresses’ _other_ devoted followers.” He snapped his head up with a hysterical, malicious grin.

The warlord stumbled back, his mind trying to retreat but the horrors clung to him, hooking into him and _feeding_. A few fell away, but not nearly all: not even most of them. To be rid of them all would have been impossible for him, but this would do for now. And Loki had become a bit adjusted to them, in a precarious sort of way. _Oh please Brer Fox, whatever you do, please don't throw me into the briar patch._ Loki’s lips twitched with bitter amusement, recalling that little parable Thor had recounted to him.

Thanos, it was clear, never had such resistance to the creatures of the void; he howled, blind with terror and pain.

“They’ve been hungry, down in that box, I imagine,” Loki said thoughtfully. “They feed off of chaos and death, and I am something of a champion of the former for the moment, and perpetual perpetrator of the latter, but _you_ outperform me on both those counts by a long shot.” Loki pushed hard, felt his bonds crackle as Thanos’ concentration on the spell waned. A few swift pulls and he was nearly free. “And you left your connection to my mind wide open for them.” He jerked slightly at a familiar sound from overhead and glared up sharply, shaking his head at the familiar sight of red, gold, and cold bluish glow from Iron Man’s repulsors.

Tony landed, lifting his faceplate and staring at Thanos where the might warlord had fallen, clawing at his brow and his eyes. The inventor raised an eyebrow. “Nice work. Did you have to let him break your comm? I almost had a heart-attack.”

“It couldn’t be prevented, and came with the removal of my helmet, which rather resulted in this.” Loki let Tony pull him up breaking away the remaining stone bonds. “Now to put him out of his misery.”

“You have enough power left?”

Loki nodded. “Enough. Be ready to leave with haste.” He picked up the titan’s dropped sword without apparent effort, despite how heavy it clearly was, and approached the fallen Thanos several feet away. “If you lower your hands,” Loki said simply, “this will be far cleaner.”

Thanos did so. His eyes were far darker than they had been before.

The god of lies raised the sword-blade, prepared to strike, and distantly heard Tony cry out. The blade fell, but Thanos was suddenly in motion, faster than any move he had made in the battle up until then, and his shoulder caught the blow with a wet crunch. His other arm, however, sent the blade-end of Loki’s own scepter into his stomach, and up a bit under his ribcage before Loki seized hold of it, dropping the sword to halt the scepter’s progress even as his breath left him and his lungs seized, refusing to function. He could hear Tony distantly, and the familiar sounds of repulsor-blasts, but Thanos was shielded by the god of mischief’s body in front of him, though he winced at the blasts that seared along his sides, and left visible grooves of damaged flesh on his left thigh.

Loki’s perception of time began to slow as his vision dimmed. He tasted blood: clearly his own, and when he tried to gasp the agony of it caused his vision to white-out for a moment. Then he half-coughed out the shallow breath, which was almost as bad, and came with a wet rattle that did not bode well at all. Even so, with his remaining determination, the trickster offered a slow, unsteady and truly horrible grin. “Your mistake,” he rasped.

Thanos roared, rising to his feet and forcing the god of mischief down, with his grip on that scepter. He painfully raised his other hand, despite the horrific pain in his damaged shoulder, and summoned a shield to deflect the sudden hail of repulsor-blasts. Then he lowered it, and shot back a single projectile of his own power that caught the armored man dead-on and hurled him back onto the fortress with more than impressive force. He began to summon something still nastier, when a strange sensation distracted him, and he looked down.

Below him, Loki stared with half-glazed eyes, aglow with something unexpected: gold-white and nearly blinding. The glow extended from his body up the scepter to Thanos’ hands, then spread over the mad titan’s body to cover him from his neck down: a localized time distortion field. In this case, it was undoing the damage Thanos had caused, leaving him with the memory of watching it become undone.

Against his will, the warlord found himself moving in reverse. “No. NO!”

Rasping as he was pulled to his feet again by that same inexorable force, Loki bit back, “Oh, _yes_.” He waited, then, let Thanos remove the spear, then summoned his helmet with a gesture and donned it again before the warlord could recover from the shock or regain his bearings. “I had hoped not to have to do that.”

“Why?” Thanos demanded. “You might have ended this from the start!”

“You know, I’m not sure quite why,” Loki mused innocently. “I can’t recall. The answer seems to have hidden itself somewhere, but everywhere I look, I find little reassurances that I don’t yet need to recall that just yet. I even asked myself as I arrived ‘why not just lead with it?’ but apparently, I made other plans. As soon as I thought of it, my memory self-obscured: tricky to arrange that sort of thing, you know. Especially in a mind as inherently suspicious as mine.” He pulled the second chain from under his armor, bright orange-gold stone glowing bright. “And now I’m somehow certain that I wasn’t supposed to have to use it for _that_. Oh, the tricks I resort to.”  Then he swung the blunt end of his scepter and cracked Thanos hard across the face. “Have I _mentioned_ how much I despize your meddling in my _head?!_ ”

The warlord bristled, but still could not move, due to the localized time distortion locking his limbs in place.

Freshly emerged from a respectably distant crater within the fortress, Tony burst through the only remaining glass door just to add insult to injury, and landed near Loki’s side. His faceplate raised again. “A bit early to bring that out, isn’t it?”

“I don’t think I expected him to be resistant to the Space gem, honestly,” Loki said, sounding contemplative.

“You don’t _think_?” Tony asked.

Illustratively, Loki tapped his temple with his free hand. “Road-blocks. It was always a risk he might get back in there. Traps and precautions,” he reminded.

“Right, right. I try not to think about it, because it gives me the creeps,” Tony muttered. “You’re alright, though?” He looked Loki up and down. “You looked... impaled.”

“I reversed it. No choice, really.” He looked thoughtfully at the Time gem. Recognition slowly dawned. _Not the real gem. Right._ “Ah. _That_ was the plan. In case I had a need to _really_ threaten you, if things went wrong. How fortuitous that they haven’t.” He grinned fiercely at Thanos. “Time for you to be sent to your Mistress.” He brought aura of time distortion lower, exposing Thanos’ shoulders, and the blade of his scepter began to glow, little crackles of high-energy particles flaring across its surface. “Step back, please, Tony.”

The inventor did so, enough to give Loki room to swing, which the god of mischief proceeded to do. One clean swipe of the blade neatly separated Thanos’ head from his shoulders. The glow of the false Time gem dropped away.

As the warlord’s head rolled, Loki reached out quick, pulling pale threads from the air that seemed to be connected to Thanos’ body and head both. “Oh, good. You’re not morbid enough to make it irremovable after your heart has stopped.” He pulled the threads, unravelling the spell keeping Thanos’ soul bound to his flesh. As he did, he heard Tony pointedly clear his throat, in a tone ever-so-slightly alarmed. Loki glanced up, unsurprised to meet the gaze of a familiar skeleton in dark robes. “Mistress Death,” he said quietly.

She nodded to him and extended a hand.

Without hesitation, Loki released the threads, letting them drift over into her grasp. She made them vanish, and through the Soul gem, Loki felt Thanos’ presence vanish with them. While she did so, Loki knelt, pulling a small power-dampening box from his pocket and pried the mind gem from the damaged top of Thanos’ armored chest-plate, careful not to actually touch it, and caught it in the box. Then he stood up straight again, tucking the box up his sleeve. As an apparent afterthought, Mistress Death looked away from him and instead met Tony’s gaze.

The god of mischief stood very, very still, resisting the urge to warn her––at least, until she smiled at Tony, which was apparently enough to chill even a mage of frost giant stock to the very bone. Then Loki cleared his throat loudly, and Death returned her gaze to him, fading to skeleton again. “You have your love,” he said softly, and then gripped the Time gem, tugging sharply, breaking the chain around his neck that it hung from, separate from the Soul gem. “And you will have all that he built.” He wove commands for the glowing gold gem, felt it responding, felt it shiver in his hands at the prospect of exerting itself into oblivion, but it accepted the commands. It was not so old as the stone it mimicked, and had not even a fraction of the same near-sentience, but it did feel alive in his hand. He took a slow breath, and dropped it.

The false Time gem fell, through the balcony, through the surface of the world: down, down, and still further down, into the very heart of the planet.

“Twenty minutes,” he said to Tony, not taking his eyes off of Mistress Death, especially as she stepped around Thanos’s body to approach him, and stand close to him, perhaps a hand’s span away. He stood his ground. “My debt is paid, then?” he asked, low and respectful as he could manage sincerely. Falsehoods, he knew, she would not appreciate.

She nodded, and raised her hands out to either side of his head.

“Loki?” Tony sounded unnerved, rawly so.

The god of lies raised a hand to halt further inquiry and silently reassure, and then lowered his head slightly, leaning into her touch. When she knocked, he let her in without hesitation. _Please_ , he couldn’t help but think. While they had been in the box, he had (refreshingly, gloriously) not had to hear them scratching, shuffling, rummaging through the depths of his mind, but they were free again now, for all that they were fewer in number. His brain itched with them until he almost wanted to tear at it with over-sharpened grappling hooks. _Please take them._

He shuddered at the unnerving sensation of her bone fingers sliding through his mind like specters, only catching on what was hers: those slithering, creeping horrors from the void. It was dizzying, and it burned, and left the inside of his skull feeling raw, but it was quiet––blissfully quiet. His mind was his own again. She pulled back, leaving his mind, and took those creeping terrors with her.

“ _And now_ ,” she said softly, “ _you too are repaid. This deal is done._ ”

Loki’s eyes fell open. Her hands left him and he moved to take a respectful step back with something approximating a bow, but stumbled, and might have fallen rather embarrassingly if Tony hadn’t managed to catch him. He leaned heavily into the armored embrace, reestablishing awareness of his limbs in his non-astral body, waiting for the disorientation to wear off. Feeling as though he had been wandering the interior of his own head for weeks on end, he again looked toward Mistress Death.

She knelt beside Thanos’ body, cradling it in her arms, his head resting in her lap and his crown upon her head, worn over her cowl. She did not glance back at them. She seemed to be waiting for the show to start.

Loki turned himself away forcibly, gripping Tony’s shoulders. “I’m fine,” he said.

“You’re lying.”

“Not much. My head is much better, I’ve just got the astral plane equivalent of jet-lag suddenly, and I’m still terrified for obvious reasons. Other than that, I really am fine.”

The inventor stared into his eyes for a long moment, and finally nodded. “Okay.”

A large explosion from the north shook the tower.

“They found Skurge,” Loki mused.

“Or Sutur.”

“Not a big enough explosion for that, but he won’t be far behind, at a guess. Best summon them back now.”

Tony nodded and tapped back into the main channel over the comms. “I’m bringing you all to my position in ten seconds. Don’t be alarmed. Bruce?”

A roar in the distance.

“Alright, duly noted: I’ll be dropping him somewhere with a low population density.”

“Wait a moment,” Loki said. “Let me see...” The Soul gem glowed a bit. “He’s back to himself, temporarily. Unconscious, though: odd.”

“Someone got Bruce?” Tony asked over the comm.

“Got him,” Steve said.

“Good. Now, Natasha, start me a countdown and stay still long enough for me to get a lock on you.”

“Don’t trust me to follow on my own?” she chimed back.

“I do, but the sooner I get a lock on all of you, the easier it’ll be for me to get us home fast, and trust me, we need to go now.”

“What, did you rig the planet to explode?” Clint asked.

“Yes,” Tony said.

A few moments of awkward silence followed.

The engineer began counting down, “5... 4... 3... 2...”

Loki turned his head, one last glance at Mistress Death, who paid him no mind.

“One,” Tony said, and all the Avengers appeared around them briefly, before all of them vanished from the face of the planet, just as something deeper below the surface than even Surtur had stirred began to writhe, and set the ground trembling.

As the Celestial hatched almost twenty minutes later, obliterating the remains of the Chitauri and the last great son of Muspelheim with the first crack it tore open in its shell, only Mistress Death lingered to watch.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: oops, forgot the Time gem is orange and not blue. Fixed.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loose ends are tied, flirting abounds, Jubilation Lee nearly has a heart attack, and the dust settles slightly in the aftermath of the war with Thanos.

“You rigged. The planet. To explode,” Steve bit out as soon as they arrived back in Avengers tower. He was still carrying a half-dressed and unconscious Bruce Banner over his shoulder.

“It wasn’t exactly intentional,” Tony lied with ease.

“Nor was there any other option,” Loki added, slurring slightly due to exhaustion.

Steve looked at the trickster and balked slightly at how much blood Loki seemed to be wearing, and how much of it didn’t look to be someone else’s, based on the damage to the god of mischief’s armor. “My god. You look like crap.”

“Loki,” Thor growled. “I am noticing a disconcerting pattern to your solutions against our perceived enemies.”

“There was no other option,” Loki insisted.

“We didn’t think Thanos the type to rig a planet to blow if he died on it,” Tony said simply. “Our mistake, I guess.”

The god of mischief swore darkly in old Norsk by way of agreement, still leaning heavily on Tony’s support even as the mad inventor used the Space gem to handily return his suit to its place in the lab and swap out the bodysuit under it for denim and a t-shirt, all without missing a beat.

Steve blinked at both of them. “Then why didn’t you say _he_ rigged it?”

“Did it look like we had time to parse words before getting the fuck out of dodge?” Tony countered.

“You’re sure he’s dead?” Natasha prompted. “You didn’t just leave the explosion to take care of him?”

“Well, he seemed pretty dead when Loki decapitated him, yeah,” Tony assured.

Loki glanced up with apparent effort, and met Natasha’s gaze. If she had seen through their blatant falsehoods, she seemed disinclined to point them out to the others on the team, at least. “On an unrelated note: I recommend that you release those souls you harvested today,” Loki said to her gently. “They aren’t ours for the keeping.”

Natasha nodded, and did so. Only she and Loki could see them emerge and rapidly fade like mist in the wind. She frowned a bit at that. “Who just took them?”

“Death,” Loki said. “She came to collect her lover, and all that he built in her name.” He raised his eyebrows at Clint and Steve when they shot him alarmed looks. “You can accept the existence of a god of lies, a god of thunder, and Asgard in her entirety, but a personification of Death is pushing it?”

“Point,” Clint mused. He pulled the Power gem out from under his vest. “I suppose I can’t keep this?”

“Odin specifically requested that they be returned,” Loki said: only a little bit of a lie. “In very strong, incontrovertible terms.”

The archer proffered it to him.

The trickster eyed it suspiciously, and again pulled the box from his pocket. “Just drop it in here.”

“Are you suddenly averse to being handed things, too?” Clint asked. “Stark, stop being contagious.”

“It’s best I don’t commune with that particular gem, or the Mind gem, for that matter,” Loki said coolly. “I know the inside of my head well enough to be certain of that.”

Blinking in unfeigned surprise, the archer dropped the stone into the box, which Loki snapped shut with a flick of his wrist before vanishing it up his sleeve.

“You are well, brother?” Thor inquired.

“I will be, I think,” Loki murmured, sounding thoughtful.

“Is Bruce going to be okay?” Steve asked. “How did he get so abruptly... well, de-greened, I guess?”

Loki raised a hand. “Returned him to his natural state. Another Soul gem perk. I didn’t go so far as to make it permanent: I just dialed him back down, to borrow a Midgardian colloquialism.”

“I’m not sure I’m comfortable with you being able to do that,” Steve said slowly.

“Not even if I give you my word not to use it upon your person?” Loki inquired. “As a citizen of Asgard with the city in my very veins, it would be a binding agreement.”

Steve considered, shooting a questioning look to Thor, who nodded to indicate his brother wasn’t lying about that particular fact. “Add in your word that you’ll never permanently dial-down Bruce, and I’ll lay off for now.”

The god of lies inclined his head, a bit less gracefully than usual. “You have my word then, Steven Rogers.”

“You’re seriously fine with that now?” Clint muttered.

“I’m less acutely alarmed by it for the time being,” Steve corrected.

“You people are loud,” Bruce muttered. “Steve, put me down, please.” Awkwardly, Captain America did so. Bruce looked at Loki and Tony wearily. “Tony, thank you as always for inventing pants that can survive the other guy. Loki, how profusely is that wound on your side still bleeding? It’s clearly bothering you.”

The god of mischief ignored the suspicious look from his lover and cleared his throat. “Not too much. It should be closed on its own within the hour.”

“I’ll be the judge of that. You look like you lost a fight to a cosmic lawnmower. Med-bay, now.” Bruce gestured with a hand.

“I won, actually,” Loki insisted, sounding a little off-balance. He was unused to someone outside his usual circle of frequent direct interaction bothering to notice such things, very unused to being bossed around by anyone with intent to heal him whether he liked it or not, and he was not at all certain how to respond to this from a man whose giant green rage monster alter-ego could knock him senseless, god or no.

“Med-bay,” Bruce repeated.

Loki fidgeted. “Seriously?”

“You fight with us, and you’re the only one really injured when we come back, and you expect me to let you skulk off to just patch _yourself_ up?” Bruce asked. “What kind of doctor do you think I am, you psychotic little alien?”

At that, the god of mischief could only blink a few times. “...Very well, then.”

“I still have some questions on the planet-explosion front,” Steve called after them, as they headed for the elevator.

“Save it for the debriefing,” Tony called back.

“If you two will actually show up for it!” Steve shouted as the elevator doors closed.

 

~~

 

Once his wounds were confirmed to be healing normally, by Asgardian standards in any case, Bruce let them go. Not long after that, Tony shamefully abused the Space gem to get them mostly-undressed and into bed with minimal effort, given they were both suffering bone-deep exhaustion by that point.

Loki sighed contently as he settled into the pillows, even as Tony settled over him, careful to avoid his injuries. The god of mischief’s eyes fell open as he felt Tony run fingers through his hair.

“They’re gone?” he asked quietly.

Loki nodded. “Quite. Just repairing the damage they left.” He smiled softly. “It’s a sort of quiet that isn’t actually maddening, for once: the sort that means my mind is my own. It’s such a relief, I can hardly describe it.” He rested a hand at the back of Tony’s neck. “Clarity of thought is a precious thing.”

“It is,” the inventor murmured, nuzzling close. “Now we have time to live without the arrays of plans and deadlines. How will we do that, then?”

The god of mischief hummed, pulling Tony own until their foreheads met gently. “They need me, in Asgard; however, it’s not quite home to me any longer, not the way it once was. Not compared to you. Even taking into account the other Avengers who live in your house, I think I am more comfortable here than my old chambers in the palace.”

“But they need you, you say,” Tony murmured. “I take it you’re who people go to when they have worries they think Odin doesn’t want to hear, or wouldn’t approve of on principle?”

Loki raised his eyebrows slightly, a smile tugging at his lips. “Yes.”

“I noticed it on my first visit. I wonder how they’ve been doing without you.”

“Awkwardly. A few palace officials with more than the usual number of braincells and one moderate criminal mastermind have tried, and failed, to fill the gap,” the god of lies said simply. “Perhaps I should offer lessons.”

Tony snorted. “Teach a man to fish, I suppose.”

“Pardon?”

Briefly, Tony explained _give a man a fish_ versus _teach a man to fish_.

“Yes. It goes somewhat against my instincts as a practitioner of obscure arcane magics, but it would free up more of my time to have others handling some of the work there,” Loki mused.

“Time to spend on new projects, less war-like?” the inventor inquired, smirking.

“Well, I haven’t finished harassing the Midgardian press, S.H.I.E.L.D. is apparently deeply disturbed by how many of the Avengers I am now on polite terms with, and there is a great deal about and on the earth I have not yet explored.” He chuckled softly. “Let us just say that I’m sure that I won’t be bored.”

“You know, there are still a few things around Asgard I’d like a chance to get some scans on, and schematics for,” Tony mused. “And people to scandalize who don’t yet know the reputation of Tony Stark. I don’t see why we can’t divide up our time between both places, now and then: both of us.”

Loki made a low, contented noise in his throat. “Agreed, then.”

“You know, I don’t think the universe is at all ready for us,” Tony mused.

“Not in the least.” Loki ran a hand along his jaw. “And all the better.”

Tony kissed him briefly, the very last if their adrenaline finally winding down for both of them as they settled into each other, and the bed, and eventually into sleep.

 

~~

 

“Loose strings,” Tony insisted on reminding his lover the next day, as soon as the god of mischief awoke, “are never a good thing. We need them tied up.”

Loki sighed. “After a shower.” He smiled wickedly. “Join me?”

The mad inventor run his thumb idly across Loki’s bottom lip. “Once we’re done with clean-up, maybe.”

The god of mischief pulled a pillow over his head. “It’s too early to be responsible,” he muttered.

“If you don’t get to it now, I think we’ll both be distracted by people trying to interrupt our sex marathon, and won’t recall what needs to be done half so clearly,” Tony corrected, leaning in close and pushing the pillow away firmly so he could meet Loki’s gaze. “And I’m not inclined to let them manage that, so let’s beat them to the punch so I can spend a few solid hours tasting nothing but you for a while.”

Loki looked contemplative at that. “I’m listening.”

“Surtur: status?”

“That depends on whether or not Skurge was persuaded by his lover to drop Surtur’s sword,” Loki murmured. “If he didn’t, Surtur might have tried to follow them. I have no doubt Amora has escaped. Once you collapsed his power-systems, and I cut off his head, Thanos’ control over her would have come to an abrupt end. She isn’t the type to linger about very long after that sort of thing.”

“So we need to catch up with them,” Tony said. “How tricky might that be?”

Loki considered. “Not too bad. It might take me an hour to get a good lock on her, more if she’s on the run from Surtur. I doubt that would be the case, though...” He looked suddenly thoughtful.

“Why not?”

“She would have led him here, obviously. She knows it would lead him to me, given how quickly I came running to meet her upon her last visit.”

“Still, we should verify.”

Loki sighed, nodding reluctantly. “If we’re lucky, I can get her to agree that she owes me a boon for saving her life.”

“That sounds twisted enough that you might well pull it off,” Tony mused. “Also: the Power and Mind gems?”

“I have a brilliant idea for where to keep the Mind one,” Loki said. “The Power gem is rather trickier.”

“I think we really should give it to your dad, in all honesty,” Tony said. “We trust him with the tesseract already, in any case. He doesn’t need the powers of that gem, so it’s safe to put it into his hands.” His eyes brightened. “Oh, _that’s_ who you want to give the Mind one to!”

“Just so,” Loki said, smiling a bit.

“Last on the list: Gamora.”

“What of her?”

“We just killed her father-figure. That’s a loose end.”

Loki considered. “She is unlikely to escape S.H.I.E.L.D., I believe.”

“How unlikely?”

The god of mischief frowned. “Not unlikely enough, admittedly,” he muttered, giving the matter some thought. He snapped his fingers. “We hand her over to the Kree.”

“The who?”

“Long-term-feud enemies of the Chitauri. I mentioned them over curry.”

“Oh, yeah. You trust they can handle her?”

“I trust they want a war criminal to put on trial. They will either execute her outright for the hundreds of Kree she’s killed over the years, or keep her imprisoned for the sake of showing off their own power.”

Tony frowned slightly. “Handing her over straight to execution...”

“For all you knew after the Tesseract incident, there was a very good chance I might be executed outright,” Loki murmured.

“We were handing you to your family as well as your home town,” Tony said. “Not your sworn enemies.”

Loki arched an eyebrow. “They _were_ my sworn enemies, after a fashion. I’d tried to kill Thor a few times by then. By our laws, he would have been within his rights to kill me in turn. My chances were slim up until the moment someone decided to remove that gag and let me speak in my own defense, which legally they were not even obliged to _do_.”

Tony swallowed tightly, considered. “You think she’ll have those same odds?”

“I think the leaders of the Kree government would find her of more value alive,” Loki said. “Her death would be one of millions. Her life in captivity would be a constant reminder, something to build propaganda around: Kree like that. She has as good a chance of survival, should she behave as well as I did once definitively captured. I may also suggest it to the Kree myself if I see that it somehow _doesn’t_ occur to them.”

“Alright then.” The mad inventor stood, proffering a hand to his lover. “Let’s get started.”

 

~~

 

Contacting the Kree was easy. Persuading S.H.I.E.L.D. to part with Thanos’ assassin was far less so, but Loki was not called Silver-tongue for nothing. It helped that Director Fury agreed with him, and didn’t want to keep the alien assassin around either: as much because of the cost of upkeep on containing someone like Gamora, as because he didn’t think her escape was unlikely enough either.

So Loki strode up to her cell, flanked by two high-ranking Kree soldiers. “Good morning, Gamora. You’re looking well.”

She glared at him, and shot the soldiers distinctly unimpressed looks. “What is this? The Kree know they cannot hold me, not while Thanos lives.”

“Then it’s a very good thing that I killed him yesterday,” Loki countered.

She stood very still, even as her breath quickened. “You lie.”

“I cut off his head,” the god of lies said coldly. “My lover took down all of his vast army: air, infantry and all. And I destroyed the world they were based on, leaving not even ashes for them to rise from again.” He shrugged idly. She remained very still. “My condolences,” he said, without sincerity.

“I will kill you,” she breathed. “It may take me centuries, but I will _make_ a way to kill you, Loki Lie-smith.”

“You would do better to live as your own self, Lady Gamora,” Loki said, low and threatening, yet gentle by his standards in cases like this. “If you come after myself and mine again, I do not care how _well-prepared_ you may be; your master thought he was prepared for my sort and far greater, he was far more powerful and brilliant than you are––and I _killed_ him in cold blood. I will bother _you_ no more, so long as you keep far, far away from this world, from Asgard, and from those I call mine.” He smiled. “That’s presuming you can possibly escape imprisonment, of course.”

The cell opened. Loki kept her still and non-threatening after a sharp tug on her soul, watching as the Kree chained her, and nodding to them as they prepared to leave. “Your people owe me a large favor, I think.”  
“It will not be forgotten,” the more senior of the soldiers concurred. “Far you well, Loki of Asgard and Midgard. Our empire recognizes both realms as our brothers, and equals, for ending this long war.”

“Good,” Loki said softly, aware of an oddly warm sensation in his stomach. “For any attempts at conquest of earth, from the Kree, would cause me to be very annoyed.”

They bowed low, and teleported away with their new prisoner.

Tony strolled in a few minutes later. “Interesting title.”

“Not one I came up with,” Loki murmured.

“Apparently, they think you represent a united front from Asgard to the Avengers,” the inventor mused. “That... that is sort of hilarious.”

The god of mischief gave an amused snort despite himself. “Yes. Yes it is.”

 

~~

 

Finding Amora was no simple task. It was only with the aid of the Space gem that arrival in her small, improvised fortress on the outskirts of Asgard was any easier.

With Tony flanking him to his right, and Thor to his left, the god of mischief did not even flinch when Skurge drew up to his full height upon their approach. “We aren’t here for violence.” Loki raised an eyebrow. “Yet.”

Thunder rumbled overhead.

Skurge glared at them, but they received a real reply from a female voice some distance behind him: “You arrive heavily armed, then, and in interesting company, Loki.”

“Yes, well,” the lie-smith began, “I know you won’t trust me not to lie _myself_. I thought it best to bring at least one less infamously dishonest person along, to provide you some comfort in that regard.”

Amora stepped around Skurge, stopping once she stood between him and her visitors. “Why are you here?”

“To outline a bargain,” Loki said. “I admit to having wronged you, in impersonating you for the purposes of misleading a son of Muspelheim. I suggest that rather than seeking vengeance against me, we call it even, given that I murdered the monster who took over your mind so recently, releasing you from his control.”

The Enchantress narrowed her eyes at him. “I think not.”

“I also spared your soul,” Loki said flatly, and whisked both her soul, and Skurge’s into the Soul gem, watching them fall like marionettes with the strings cut.

“Brother!”

“Hang on,” Tony said, his face-mask retracting. “I did the same to Strange: it’ll get the point across.”

The god of lies nodded absently, finished counting to twenty, and released their souls back into the appropriate bodies. Skurge immediately rose to a crouch, lifting his axe, but did not stand, and wore a disturbed, almost cowed expression. Amora’s face wore a similar look, but only briefly; it soon faded to outright annoyance.

“Nice trick,” she bit out. “I suppose you’ll be less sparing of our souls if I don’t give my word to seek no vengeance against you and yours over this whole debacle?”

“You do know me so well, at times,” Loki said, voice light and airy. “Yes.”

She took a slow, deep breath and rose again to her feet. With a reluctant bow, she conceded, “You have my word. It will not prevent me from harassing you whenever I next get the chance, regardless. I see no point in your insistence here.”

“Because I now know you don’t have Surtur’s sword; I had hoped you would be so sensible, but one never knows,” Loki said simply. “Thank you for your cooperation.”

The two Avengers and the god of lies then vanished.

 

~~

 

The unexpected ringing of the doorbell startled half the occupants of the front of the mansion, at Xavier’s Institute. A pause followed.

“I’m not gettin’ it,” Rogue muttered. “I’m sleeveless today, and if I’ve gotta kick their ass, there’ll be trouble.”

Kurt, from the ceiling, muttered about his holo-watch being on the fritz.

“That’s a damn dirty lie, Kurt,” Jubilee muttered, but got to her feet anyway, snapping her laptop shut and tucking it under one arm. “My followers damn you all if this takes too long. I will set them upon you with spam.”

“Oh, the horror,” Bobby deadpanned, not looking up from his book. Rogue’s booted feet rested in his lap: since Rogue had not agreed to move, the others knew better than to tell her footrest to move either. “Go forth, most senior of our junior X-men.”

Jubilee flicked him off just before vanishing around the corner, heading for the door. It was a quiet day, overall. Professor X hadn’t mentioned any need to be on good behavior due to strange guests, and was busy working with Jean to locate some recent villain or something anyhow. Unplanned company, it must be, then: not urgent enough to barge in violently, at least, which was a good sign.

So, Jubilee reasoned, it was most likely one of the younger students getting locked out or something. That happened now and then. Or it was another confused traveling salesman unusually resistant to the telepathy-based illusions in front of the mansion that kept most solicitors and enemies at bay: resistant-types were so tricky, sometimes. Especially the one that’d been a Jehovah’s Witness: that’d been awkward.

When she opened the door and found herself eye to eye with a ridiculously well-cut suit from a label it irked her that she couldn’t recognize right off the bat, Jubilee was surprised. Then her eyes trailed up further to the face above the suit and her eyes widened as far as they could within the confines of her face. She made a small noise.

“Ah,” the man at the door said, his smile brilliantly white and just a bit incidentally predatory. “You must be Jubilation Lee. Rogue mentioned you upon my last visit.”

“If you want autographs,” said the second man, whom Jubilee had been only peripherally aware of at first, though the sound of his voice made her head snap around so she could stare and realize that yes, it was, in fact, Tony Stark, “then I recommend finding something for us to sign. I didn’t bring any head shots.”

Slowly, Jubilee returned her stare to the taller man, the one at Tony Stark’s right, the one recently confirmed by the press as _Luke Lyesmthe_ even though Rogue and Kurt insisted he was actually the Norse god of chaos and mischief and _with a smile and eyes like that_ Jubilee was more than ready to believe them. “So... Loki?” she tested, proud that her voice sounded mostly-even.

The green-eyed man inclined his head cordially. “Loki Lie-smith, yes. I’m here to see Professor Xavier about a rather important matter.”

Jubilee nodded slowly. Before she could stop it, her words leapt way ahead of her brain: “I suppose starting online rumors that you’re a super-villain would be a bad thing, or do you not mind maybe? Just. Out of curiosity.”

Loki appeared to think it over, weighing the options with interest. “Well...”

“Come on, darling: there’s trolling the press, and there’s the chance you might actually be in someone’s photos from the New York invasion thing,” Tony said.

“If it’s just rumor,” Loki mused, “Just a ‘meme’ as it were, it becomes harmless. No press would take it seriously, and anyone who did take it as such would be laughed at for years over it. And in any case, all photographs can be made to appear doctored, once we track down the original source.”

Tony hummed thoughtfully and began to display a wolfish sort of grin of his own. “I can see that. And it would change the whole theme of our ‘ship’ I suppose. Things were looking a bit too sappy: making you a villain would spice it up a bit.”

Jubilee emitted a low squeak, her face reddening. “Oh god, you guys actually keep up with... with-” Mortification had just become her middle name. So had Horror.

“Yes, mostly on ‘Tumblr’ I think it is, though only of very recent, and only a little,” Loki assured. “We’ve only just gotten used to some of the nomenclature.”

Not at all reassured, Jubilee stepped aside quickly, deciding it would be best to let them in now before she evaporated in a cloud of intermixed squee and shame. “Come in. Sorry.”

Tony chuckled, stepping in like he owned the place, Loki following shortly behind him. “Don’t worry. It’s pretty funny, actually.”

“Wait,” Jubilee’s brain, casting about desperately for any sort of distraction by this point, struck on a minor one. “The invasion in New York? That was you?”

Loki pressed a shushing finger to his lips, smiling devilishly behind it, amused to see the girl blush. “Just a bit of fun, really.”

She gaped at him a bit.

By that point, a familiar voice called from another room: “Jubes! Are ya wounded or dead? Who is it at the door?”

“How the hell would I answer if I were dead, Rogue? I really wannna know!” Jubilee shot back, reflexively, the instinctive casual snark snapping a little of her composure back into place. It then occurred to her that reporting to a slightly more senior member of the X-men that one of the Avengers and his super-villain fiancé had arrived might be a good idea. “Also, Loki is here with Tony Stark.”

A pause, then a good deal of shuffling followed. “Yer shittin’ me.”

“She is not,” Loki called sweetly.

“You made an impression, I see,” Tony muttered.

The god of mischief merely beamed at him.

Jubliee just barely resisted the urge to fumble for her camera-phone as Rogue ran into the room, trailed by a wary-looking Bobby and a puff of smoke that soon resolved itself into a surprised and curious-looking blue mutant about Rogue’s age, standing near her left.

“You son of a bitch,” Rogue greeted warmly. “I’d hug you, but it might kill you. What the hell are ya doin’ here?”

“Lovely as it is to see you again, Rogue, I do fear it’s business rather than pleasure.” He proffered a handshake and smiled when she accepted it. Her gloves only went an inch above her wrist, leaving the rest of her arms bare, thanks to her tank top. “Is Xavier terribly busy? I have something to discuss with him,” Loki said.

“He and Jeannie are in the middle of a brain-walking session, but they should be done in about fifteen, twenty minutes,” Rogue offered. She then eyed Tony Stark with a grin and offered her hand. “You’re Stark, then. I’m Rogue. Just Rogue.”

Tony accepted the handshake with a smile. “Loki mentioned you, yeah.”

“I’m going to kill you,” Jubilee whispered faintly.

“No ya aren’t, sugar,” Rogue whispered back, then, a bit louder, she added, “Tony Stark, this is Jubilee, the worried-lookin’ blond there in the back is Bobby––Loki, I don’t think ya met him last time––and the blue one is my adoptive brother Kurt.” A pause. “Though it was just last week that we found out about his mom havin’ adopted me years ago. Long story.”

“Sounds it,” Tony mused.

Loki met Kurt’s eye and smiled wide enough to disconcert. “Good to see you well, Mr. Wagner.”

“And you...” He hesitated. “You’re really _that_ Loki?”

“Yes,” the god of mischief responded. “And I don’t care what the internet may have told you: I’ve never _given birth_ to anything.”

All four X-men (junior or otherwise) suddenly tilted their heads just slightly, as though hearing something. After a moment, Rogue said, “Well. Charles is done with his project with Jeannie, he says. Apparently, she’s unnerved by whatever it is you’re bringing here. Got some kinda psychic weapon in ya pocket?”

“Something like that, and it’s precisely what I’m here to discuss with the Professor,” Loki said simply. “She can deal with it for the nonce.”

“It’s not one of mine, I promise,” Tony added, idly catching the god of mischief’s hand in his own, their fingers entwining.

“I’ll lead ya there. Unless you feel up to it, Jubes?”

“I...” Jubilee shook her head to clear it, rather futilely. “I’ll join you, yeah.” _Anytime anywhere_ she didn’t add, but it was on the tip of her tongue. She cleared her throat and tried again. “I mean. I’d take you... to his office. I mean, uhm...”

Rogue slowly raised one eyebrow.

“I’m fine,” Jubilee said. “You go ahead. I’ll just. Be here.”

Rogue smiled, thoroughly amused, and prodded Tony’s shoulder as she passed them. “C’mon, lovebirds. Stop tormenting ya fanbase and come on.”

Loki, who had bent his head down to murmur something very close to Tony’s ear, smiled a truly wicked smile and followed her, Tony with him and not missing a beat.

For a long time, the other three X-men lingered in the hall, watching until Rogue, the god of mischief, and Iron Man vanished around a corner.

“Well. That’s... interesting,” Bobby managed. “They’re sort of terrifying.”

Kurt snorted. “You also think Black Widow and Rogue can both be terrifying. I think you just are afraid they might break you. You should learn to see past this.”

“Yes, I am afraid of that a little: as _we all should be_.”

“If it were Black Widow, I don’t think I’d mind being broken,” Kurt sighed.

“Oh, jeez, another fangirl. Jubes, help him start a blog on Tumblr.”

No response from Jubilee.

Both boys blinked at the lack of anticipated pithy one-liner and turned to look at her with concern. “Jube-Jube?” Kurt prompted, stepping closer. She still seemed to be staring wide-eyed in the direction her OTP had vanished in. Kurt waved a hand in front of her face, and she still didn’t blink. “I think they broke her.”

Bobby looked thoughtful, and cupped his hands around his mouth. “SALE AT FOREVER 21!”

Jubilee blinked at long last and twitched slightly. “Wha...”

“There you are,” Kurt sighed, relieved. “You were zoned out.”

“I think I’m justified.” She covered her face with her hands and groaned, “OhgodtheybrowseTumblrjesuschrist.” She then turned on her heel and fled, shouting something about having to warn her people.

The two young men stared after her. “I think I may never understand women,” Bobby said quietly, “and I think living in this house isn’t exactly improving my already slim chances at improving on that.”

“Agreed,” Kurt said. “I think you will never understand women.”

“Oh, shut up.”

 

~~

 

Loki strolled into Xavier’s office with a bit more confidence this time. His mind back as it should be, with the spartan theme abandoned in favor of his more usual decor and no strange writhing things skittering around under the floors or in the walls, he was very comfortable indeed.

Tony entered with a bit more caution, knowing his mind was a bit less closely-guarded than his lover’s. He kept his peripheral thoughts focused on schematics for improvements on the quinjet, and his main focus on Loki and the bald, paternally reassuring man behind the ancient oak desk.

“Good afternoon, Charles,” Loki said, bowing slightly. “Tony, this is Professor Charles Xavier. Charles, this is my fiancé Mr. Tony Stark.”

Tony stepped forward to shake the telepath’s hand. “Thanks for your help on our recent endeavors. It’s done well for us, all things considered.”

Xavier nodded. “So your war is over then?” He glanced between the two of them.

“Yes,” Loki said, taking his seat on the other side of the desk.

Tony settled into the chair next to him. “As a result, we’ve come across an artifact that––well, I think it’s best we don’t have on hand. In the Avenger’s tower and Asgard both, there’s not anyone really––well, _sane_ enough we’d be comfortable leaving it with them.”

“Ourselves included,” Loki added. “A century or two ago, a spell backfired and gave me an accidental case of telepathy for roughly two days. It’s not an experience I care to relive, in any way, shape or form.”

Xavier raised an eyebrow. “You have the Mind gem?”

The god of mischief and the mad inventor both nodded.

“We do,” Tony said.

“That must be what Jean sensed, then,” the professor said. “She is better attuned to sensing objects of power, sentient or not. The Mind gem, I think, is somewhere in between.”

Loki pulled the small, square box, coated in interwoven threads of carved runes, from up his sleeve, and flicked it open. His other hand, suddenly holding a pair of elegant steel tongs of some sort, reached in and plucked out the blue Mind gem, setting it in the center of Xavier’s desk. “It may well be. I have not sampled its power to find out. Neither of us have.”

“Though you are rather less cautious with many of the others, I note,” Xavier mused. “You’re carrying one each, I believe.”

“The Soul gem is very nearly sentient,” Loki said. “I get on with it’s personality fine enough, and find its vampiric tendencies both relatable and easy to control.”

“The Space gem is the only one with a really useable visual interface,” Tony added. “I’m keeping it. That’s all there really is to say on the matter.”

Xavier smiled faintly at them both, though it faded when he again rested his gaze on the Mind gem. “You wish me to keep this for you?”

“I hope you will keep it _from_ us,” Loki corrected. “I meant it, Charles, when I stated you are a good man. I would trust no others with the power that stone carries, which is only a larger-scale version of the gifts you already possess. You use them well, and with more than impressive discretion. I entrust you with it fully.” He closed the box, and vanished both it and the tongs, leaving the Mind gem stranded on Xavier’s desk. “You may do with it as you please: entrust it to someone else if you wish, box it up and have one of your students hurl it into space. Your judgement, on this matter, I value.”

Xavier held the god of mischief’s gaze for a long time, his brow lightly furrowed, then looked to Tony as well. “I take it that you are here to represent the Avengers also supporting this idea.”

Tony nodded. “Yeah. It’s not just the idea of our charming consultant ex-super-villain; it’s ours, too. I ran it by our two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, who know of you, and they both agreed with the idea, and also agreed not to tell the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D. about it. I also told our boy in the star-spangled shorts, and our resident biochemist, too: they’re with me on it. I’d have run it by Thor, but I get the feeling he might have wanted to consult Odin on it and... well, frankly, we’re already going to be giving him a few things. I’d sleep better knowing we’d offered this to you before adding this to the list of incredibly dangerous and valuable things in his weapons vault.”

Nodding thoughtfully, Xavier shot Tony a patient, knowing, looking-right-through-you sort of look that was almost annoyingly paternal to a man like Tony Stark. “I see, then.” He reached out and carefully picked up the gem. For a moment he stared at Loki, who looked mostly unflappable except a slight flexing of his fingers, stretching them a little, keeping them loose as a mage might wish to, when feeling just a little threatened. Then Xavier set the stone aside on his desk, looking thoughtful. “I see you have gotten rid of those intrusive creatures. That’s very good.”

Loki nodded, his expression a blank mask. “I have.”

“Which one of us would owe a favor, were I to accept this, Loki?”

Tony and the god of lies exchanged brief glances.

“Neither of us,” Loki assured. “Unless you feel I should owe you for this.”

Xavier considered. “I do not. I will take guardianship of it of my own free will.”

“Thank you,” Tony said, echoed by Loki’s “Many thanks.”

“Do please warn me beforehand, the next time you choose to visit,” Xavier said. “Our Jubilation Lee may have well contained her reactions, insofar as volume, in front of the pair of you, but I assure you that my astral form’s ears are still ringing.”

Tony burst out laughing before he could help it, and even the god of mischief couldn’t contain a snigger before containing himself and settling for a smug smile to put the cheshire cat to shame.

“Yes, very funny,” the professor said. “Off with you both, then, and good afternoon to you.”

Loki and his mad inventor stood, each of them shook Xavier’s hand once more, and made their way out into the hall.

Rogue awaited them, cellphone in hand buzzing, and buzzing again. “She keeps texting me because of you,” she muttered. “Apparently she’s given in and gone for her camera. She’s near the stairs, hoping to surreptitiously get a shot or two of y’all before you leave.”

“Well. We didn’t let the real press manage it yet,” Tony muttered.

The trickster god tilted his head slightly. “Hmm?”

“The inevitable couple-shot.” Tony waggled his eyebrows.

Slowly, Loki began to smile: slyness and mischief incarnate. “Oh, I see. Well, we’ve done enough tormenting; I suppose it’s only fair.”

Rogue glanced between the two of them, both unnerved and amused as she texted the insistent Jubilee that her OTP had left Xavier’s office. The persistent texts from the fangirl ceased abruptly and Rogue smiled. “Well, despite whatever evil you have planned, I suppose I should walk you to the door.”

“Not altogether necessary,” Loki said. “We know the way.” He winked at her just as Tony Stark shot her a wicked smile.

Despite herself, Rogue felt a bit warmed. These two, she decided, were dangerous together. “But I don’t wanna miss the show,” she protested, with a bit of mock-petulance thrown in for good measure even as she grinned back at them.

“Fair enough,” Tony said, and started walking, one hand on Loki’s lower back.

Rogue followed, trying not to burst into giggles. She jumped when Kurt appeared beside her without warning. “Christ, furball! Ya gotta warn a girl, or she might reflexively hurl ya through a wall next time!”

“Sorry, Rogue.” He flashed her a grin. He was a bit surprised to see Tony Stark and the god of mischief several feet ahead of them. “Why are-”

Rogue curled a hand around his wrist, interrupting him. “Get us to the landing over the stairs, quiet as ya can.”

Kurt grinned widely, and obeyed, causing them to vanish in a puff of smoke.

Tony looked over his shoulder, seeing the smoke cloud and smirking. “You’re sure that blue kid isn’t a distant relative or something? Third cousin twice removed?”

Loki snorted. “He struck me as quite human, actually.”

The inventor shook his head a little. “I suppose that little ‘bamf’ noise is a bit different from your usual travel spells.”

They reached the front door, and Tony took hold of Loki’s tie. “This is a bad idea, you know. The press will be all sorts of baffled as to where the pictures might be from.”

“Oh yes,” Loki purred. “Then again, we’re still more subtle than the only photographer in New York capable of getting a photograph of _The Spider-Man_ , I think.”

“Stop stalking other heroes,” Tony muttered. “I’ll have to get jealous.”

“You started following the news on that one before I did,” Loki teased.

“Only because I found out S.H.I.E.L.D. was watching him like a hawk and trying to get his identity locked down. It’s really just the one photographer?”

“Took a bit of digging: he uses one or two false names and three P.O. boxes...”

The mad inventor shook his head, pulling his trickster god down closer. “I’m telling you,” he muttered. “I’m new at the jealousy thing. Don’t make me.”

“No need, Tony,” Loki murmured. “I’m far too in love with you. Deeply.”

Tony bit his lip. “We still have one more stop on the loose-ends list. You know we do. Stop tempting me.”

Seeking to distract him, Loki finally caught his lips. Distantly, they both heard a muffled squeal from the direction of the stairs and ignored it, despite the sound of a camera going off.

Breaking away, Tony insisted, “One more stop. Come on.”

“I’d like to come on you anywhere but Asgard at the moment,” Loki muttered.

With a slight shiver, Tony opened the front door and tugged Loki through it. “You’re an evil god. Come on.” He closed the door behind them and promptly vanished them both from the mansion’s grounds.

 

~~

 

While Jubilee almost fell over hyperventilating at her place partway up the stairs, Kurt and Rogue merely stared at the closed door thoughtfully for a few long moments, from their place on the balcony at the landing above the stairs. The southern belle broke the silence first, with a small noise in her throat. “I think I’m startin’ to understand why they have fans like Jubilee.”

“I almost do too, I think,” Kurt muttered. “And I don’t even like men. They’re simply...” He waved a hand vaguely. “I don’t know the words for it.”

“Animal magnetism,” Rogue said distantly, her eyes only a little glazed over. “They have it in spades. And they’re both way too entertainin’ on their own anyhow. Together they’re like a supernova of charisma and danger: not so easy to take your eyes off of, you know?”

Kurt nodded. “They make me glad I’m comfortable in my masculinity.”

“I’d hope so, Errol Flynn,” Rogue teased.

“You know I’m adorable,” Kurt shot back. “And you know I own it.”

Rogue snorted at him, shaking her head. “Yeah, yeah. Go get those ladies, tiger. I’d be fine with a full body-stocking, a few silk scarves, and those two.” She jerked her chin toward the front door.

Kurt made a face. “Now that I know you’re my sister, I find that inherently disturbing to think of.”

“Good. Now I have a way to keep ya in line.” She smiled beatifically at him.

“ _Verdammt_.”

“C’mon. Let’s go make sure Jubes doesn’t pass out down there.”

Sighing, Kurt teleported them both down.

 

~~

 

Last on the loose-end agenda of visits was Odin All-Father, of Asgard. And he appeared distinctly unimpressed, even after they surrendered to him not only all of the copies they had made of the Infinity gems, but the original Power gem itself, too. “You blew up a planet,” he said flatly.

Loki coughed. “Well-”

“ _Again_ ,” Odin added.

“To be fair, he didn’t completely succeed the first time?” Tony interjected. Both gods shot him a look, but he remained uncowed. “It wasn’t an overly populated planet, either, once we shut the army down. Barely anyone home, there.”

“Then it hardly seems necessary to have destroyed the place,” the All-Father mused. “Unless there is something neither of you have decided to tell me.”

Both the inventor and the god of mischief fidgeted under his disapproving stare.

“It was to do with Mistress Death,” Loki said, after a long few moments of awkward silence. “And–– _things_ in my mind: traces of my fall through the void.”

Odin’s brow furrowed in concern. “You did not tell me that such things had lingered with you so, Loki.”

“Nothing could be done about them, even if I had,” the god of lies insisted. “And I know the stories of others who have fallen through such places. I tried to imply it, but dared not be so direct as to invite still closer observation from you all, when I was just beginning to slowly regain your trust.”

Resting a hand on his son’s arm, Odin said quietly. “I wish you had trusted me enough to inform me.”

“But you cannot blame me for not doing so,” Loki countered. “We still have much to repair, you and I. We cannot rebuild without trial, and time to heal the older injuries.”

Reluctantly, the All-Father nodded.

“We gave her what Thanos had promised her, indirectly and otherwise,” Tony said softly. “We gave her all that he built in her name: the world from which he ruled, the army with which he conquered, and Thanos himself.”

Looking closely at the human inventor, eyes shrewd and appraising even as some of the tension in him faded, Odin observed, “You were more than aware of this plan, then.”

“I was,” Tony said. “It was a price I considered to be worth paying.” His expression was steely and determined, almost challenging, daring the All-Father to suggest it hadn’t been.

Odin considered for a long moment, then nodded to them both. “My apologies, then. You both acted rightly, albeit recklessly. I would call anyone else mad who had taken such an approach.” He glanced from one, to the other, and back again. “With the pair of you, that really goes without saying.”

The pair of tricksters smiled faintly in response.

Odin shook his head at them. “By the nine, while I do love you both, you may drive me mad along with you.”

“Oh, I think you were off to a fine start before either of us showed up,” Tony countered.

The All-Father snorted at him. “Watch it, Stark.”

Loki sniggered helplessly despite all attempts to contain it.

 

~~

 

By the time they returned to earth, Loki felt he’d had more than enough time to recover: his wounds were all closed, only a few of them having left patches of heavy bruising on his skin, he had more thoroughly tied up loose ends after a successful victory than at any other point in his extensive personal history, and he _wanted_. He wanted _very badly_.

So he transported them to the bedroom himself, pinning Tony down on the bed and kissing him with fierce ardor. “No. More. List,” he bit out at one point, before sliding down the inventor’s body and taking Tony into his mouth before the inventor could even respond.

“Haaahhgodyes,” Tony gasped. “Not arguing. Not even––hnngh yes holy fuck.” He rolled his hips, angling them down against Loki’s fingers as they pressed into him without warning and immediately began applying pressure and friction against the spot that all but made him see stars. It had been his plan to drive Loki to distraction over the course of the day, and eventually have a well and truly desperate god of mischief in his bed by early evening. Tony had planned to be the one making Loki beg, but complaints, for the moment, were the furthest thing from his mind. He didn't even have thought or breath to spare to wonder where or how Loki had acquired lube so instantly. The inventor made a low, breathless sound as he felt Loki swallow around his length once, then twice. Tony then outright growled as Loki’s mouth released him. “Nnnonono go back.”

“Not yet,” the god of mischief purred, working another finger into him, their pace unrelenting and just changeable enough––in pace, and the occasional maddening _twist_ ––to keep Tony from being able to focus on any train of thought for very long. “I want you a bit more desperate. You’ve had me craving you all day, pulling me along with it, savoring that you knew how _hungry_ it was making me.”

Tony offered a series of incoherent half-syllables, ending in a low groan as Loki’s hand at his hip pulled him forward onto the god’s lap, changing the angle enough to make his back arch reflexively. “Yes,” he managed, sounding strangled. His eyes snapped open, meeting Loki’s as he sat up, resting his weight back on his forearms, biting his lip when the trickster’s fingers slid out of him and slipped up along his perineum, then cupped the rest of him in hand, caressing slow and maddening. “I wanted you to beg,” Tony rasped. He abruptly pushed himself up further, curling an arm around the back of Loki’s neck and pushing that taunting hand aside before grinding his hips down against the god of mischief’s erection, earning ragged gasps from both of them.

Loki gripped those hips tightly in both hands, and found himself unsure whether he wanted to encourage or discourage them from their current writhing. He bucked in response before he could stop himself and exhaled all his breath in a hiss as Tony reached between them for the little bottle of lube, and put it to use: fingers curling around Loki’s cock, slick and rough. “Fuck, Tony.”

“As you wish,” the inventor growled, and aimed his hips down, hand acting as guide as he sheathed Loki to the hilt in one abrupt movement, pulling a near-inhuman sound from the god of mischief’s throat. “Now get to it,” Tony snapped, rocking up and letting the god tug him back down sharply. " _Yesss_ , god, Loki, I need to feel you."

Shuddering at the mixed command and plea in those words, Loki’s eyes snapped open as he leaned back slightly against the headboard for leverage and began to thrust hard as he could, deep as he could, making sure the mad inventor riding him couldn’t keep quiet even when he tried. Still gripping Tony’s hips hard, he steered each rise and fall, making sure he hit Tony’s prostate unerringly each time, until the human's breathlessness more than equalled his. “Louder for me,” Loki purred.

Without input from higher brain functions, Tony shouted a disjointed stream of intermittent curses and praise, fingers scrabbling at the back of Loki’s neck and shoulders. He was all too close, all too fast. “Pleasepleaseslowerplease,” he managed to rasp. “Need this to last, please.”

Loki pulled him down sharply once more, then held him in place and began to grind his hips in a slow, undulating motion: just enough to give Tony a thoroughly distracting bit of friction against his prostate, and where the inventor’s cock was pressed between their bodies. “Good,” the god of mischief breathed. “Think you can last for me, then, Tony?”

Tony nodded wordlessly, writhing in counterpoint and breathing hard.

“Can’t hear you,” Loki rumbled, leaning in closer and biting hard at Tony’s neck.

The inventor gasped and bucked his hips hard. “Gngh. Yes. I can. Just don’t stop.”

“Not for all the world,” Loki assured. “You’re so gorgeous like this, Tony.” He thrust again, just sharp enough to make Tony’s whole body jerk against him: bringing them closer, minimizing the already narrow gaps between them, rather than widening them. Loki loved that: loved that even unable to think clearly in the least, Tony’s instinct was always for _closer_ and _more_ with him.

Tony all but whimpered when the god of mischief slowed his pace, but matched him, though his kiss when he caught Loki’s mouth was all haste and desperation.

Loki’s breath stuttered at it, and at the possessive way Tony’s fingers dug into his back. _More,_ he thought _, and closer_. Then Tony’s mouth broke away abruptly and Loki couldn’t help but say it: “More,” he groaned, the plea in his voice clear as he slid one hand up Tony's back and neck to then tangle in the mad inventor’s hair. “ _Closer_.”

Tony smiled, and Loki could feel it against his own lips. “Good,” he panted. “I love when you beg. Now c’mon and _take_ me.”

With a strangled groan, Loki obeyed, picking up the pace again, relentless as ever, kissing Tony hard all the while, gasping whenever the hips under his hands rolled against him just _so_ : just enough make him break rhythm it was so good, which made things just that bit rougher, more unpredictable, more _them_. He pulled one of Tony’s knees up so he could get that little bit deeper, at just a slightly better angle, and swallowed Tony’s ragged cry as the inventor came hard, rutting slightly against Loki’s stomach and leaving them both slick as the god of mischief kept pounding into him, moaning prettily when Tony clenched around him and rolled his hips. The movements made Tony shudder with the near-painful pleasure of an acute aftershock, and he broke the kiss, Loki’s name a gasp on his tongue, which successfully made the trickster god fall apart under him, shuddering with his release, until at last they both stilled.

Breathing hard, they both slowly collapsed onto the bed with less than their usual grace, and curled close as they could around each other once there: quiet and lazy and unmoving save their breaths, and when Loki waved a hand to clean Tony’s come from between them.

Tony muttered something about that still being the most convenient thing ever.

Loki merely responded, “Five minutes, and I plan to have you again.”

“Funny,” the inventor mused. “I was thinking I might see about making you scream again. I found our first set of handcuffs and everything.”

Loki hummed, considering, then said, low and sultry, “I suppose you’ll have to persuade me.”

Tony snorted, folding his arms on Loki’s chest and resting his chin on them. “In five minutes, then.” He let his eyes fall shut. “You’ve been marvelous all day: time to let me be marvelous to you in turn. Persuaded yet?”

The god of mischief chuckled softly. “Smooth-talker.”

“Yes, well. My tongue and I have some plans for you.”

Loki’s eyes fell open, bright with mirth. “I’m always interested in your plans.”

“Oh good, so that’s mutual, too,” Tony mused.

“I love you,” Loki said simply. “And I plan to keep you. If I don’t factor in your plans, that could get very messy.”

Nuzzling closer, Tony concurred, “Yes, that’s true. Mostly I plan to keep hold of you and keep finding out more––more about everything to do with you.” He hummed, low and thoughtful. “And I plan to enjoy it.”

“Excellent,” Loki said. “This neatly parallels my own plans.”

“War over. You’re all mine now,” Tony muttered softly.

“I already was,” the god of mischief whispered in return. “Why do you think I fought so hard?”

At a loss for words, Tony kissed him again, slow and tender this time. When it broke, he said quietly, “Me too.”

They settled closer, ready for the next round of madness in their lives, be it in bed or otherwise. The universe might not be ready for them, but after this...

“I think now we’re ready for just about anything,” Loki said.

“Of course we are. Now come here.”

“I’m already quite close, you’ll find.”

“No: _here_.” Tony rolled them, so Loki hovered over him. “All yours.”

Resting a hand over the arc reactor, Loki leaned in a little, and with his remaining free hand brought Tony’s hand to rest over his own heart. “Your liar.”

Tony smiled. “My liar.”

JARVIS, with a polite chime (the digital equivalent of throat-clearing) interrupted, “Director Fury and Steve Rogers are both requesting your attention, Mr. Stark.”

Tony cursed.

“You forgot your debriefing, didn’t you?” Loki mused.

“Dammit. They can wait ‘til tomorrow. JARVIS? Full lockdown, full encryption, all booby traps in place. Tell them that anyone who steps foot up here will be risking life and limb, because I am _busy_.”

Loki sniggered, resting his forehead against Tony’s chest. “I should make you go. It was the only loose end on your list today, after all.”

Tony groaned. “Please don’t. I have so many plans for your ass.”

“Hmm. What will I get in exchange for such a generous show of mercy, I wonder?” Loki mused airily.

“Obvious. You get to fuck me again without waiting who knows how long until they’re done with me.”

The god of mischief considered for a long moment, then bit his thumb just hard enough to draw blood and drew a complex sigil over the headboard. “Give it a moment.”

They waited.

“JARVIS?” Loki prompted.

“Both of them seem to have forgotten what they were asking about and gone about their usual business,” the AI reported.

Tony blinked. “Did you just pull the blood-magic equivalent of ‘these are not the droids you are looking for’ or something?”

“Blood was involved, but it isn’t actually blood-magic: that’s an entirely different practice, and honestly rather unsavory,” Loki said. “But otherwise, yes, that’s an accurate assessment.”

Laughing helplessly, Tony kissed him. “You’re perfect. Stay mine.”

“Oh good,” Loki purred. “That’s mutual, too, then.”

“Yes,” Tony agreed, and promptly handcuffed him to the headboard.

 

And thus did the rest of their evening, night, and very early morning hours pass by, undisturbed.


End file.
